| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | Sonnets to Aurelia
XXVII. “I must remember now how once I woke” | | By Robert Nichols (1893–1944) |
| | (From Aurelia & Other Poems, 1920) |
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I MUST remember now how once I woke | |
| To find the harsh lamplight stream upon her bed, | |
| The ceiling tremble in its giddy smoke, | |
| And on the wall the agile spider spread, | |
| To hear the reverberate vault of silence shake | 5 |
| Beneath the hollow crash of midnight’s toll, | |
| Whose profound strokes waned impotent to break | |
| The charnel stillness of the city’s soul. | |
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| These I remember, but would more forget | |
| What is most fixed, whereby I am undone, | 10 |
| How white, how still you lay, though shuddering yet | |
| In the last luxury of oblivion, | |
| As if of Death you had taken love long denied, | |
With on your face the bliss of suicide.
THE BLACK MOUNTAINS, 23rd Nov., 1919;
OXFORDSHIRE, 16th Feb., 1920. | | | |
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