Classic Poem

And yet the woman, who all things remembers,
Writhing her limbs as serpents on the embers,
Beating her breasts, as if herself she hated,
Utters these words by her musk impregnated:
—“I, my lips are moist, and I know the science
Of losing in a bed's depths my defiance;
I dry all tears of all that have the passion
For these my breasts, my laughter is their fashion.
I replace, for those men who see me naked,
The sun, the moon, the stars, so must you take it!
I have, dear learned man, the power to rifle
Flesh in my velveted arms, the strength to stifle
Certain, when I am naked, such igniting
To furnace-heat, as they my flesh are biting,
Who on this mattress swoon, these to enslave me:
The impotent angels would be damned to save me!”

When out of all my bones she had sucked the marrow
And as I turned to her, in the act to harrow
My senses in one kiss, to end her chatter,
I saw a gourd that was filled full with foul matter!
I closed mine eyes, all my body shivering,
And when I opened them, in the dawn's quivering,
I saw at my side a puppet of derision
Who had made of its blood too much provision,
Then fragments of a skeleton in confusion
That of themselves made a mere mist of illusion,
Or of a sign-board at the end of a batten
The winter wind swung, as it seemed, in Latin.