FLAME
by: George Sterling (1869-1926)
- HOU art
that madness of supreme desire,
- Which lacking, beauty is but dross and clay.
- Within thy veins is all the fire of day
- And all the stars divinity of fire.
- Thine are the lips and loins that never tire,
- And thine the bliss that makes my soul dismay.
- Upon thy breast what god at midnight lay,
- To make thy flesh the music of his lyre?
-
- Ah! such alone should know thy loveliness!
- Ah! such alone should know thy full caress,
- O goddess of intolerable delight!
- I beg of Fate the guerdon and the grace,
- Far beyond death, to know in thine embrace
- Eternal rapture in eternal night.
"Flame" is reprinted from
Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown Publishers,
1921. |
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POEMS BY GEORGE STERLING |
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