| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Happiest | | By George Sterling (1869–1926) |
| | (1921)
CALLING you now, not for your flesh I call, | |
| Nor for the mad, long raptures of the night | |
| And passion in its beauty and its might, | |
| When the ecstatic bodies rise and fall. | |
| I cannot feign: God knows I see it all— | 5 |
| The flaming senses, raving with delight, | |
| The leopards, swift and terrible and white, | |
| Within the loins that shudder as they crawl. | |
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| All that could I exultingly forego, | |
| Could I but stand, one flash of time, and see | 10 |
| Your heavenly, entrancing face, and know | |
| I stood most blest of all beneath the sun, | |
| Hearing these words from your fond lips to me: | |
| “I love, love you, and love no other one!” | | | | |
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