LOVE AND SLEEP
By Charles Algernon Swinburne
Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to mine eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.
CHARLES ALGERNON SWINBURNE: The aristocratic Swinburne (1837-1909) was one of the Pre-Raphaelites and a close friend of Dante Rossetti. His (sometimes) controversial poetry was quite popular for a time, admired by Thomas Hardy, among others. By all accounts, he was a "very excitable boy" who grew to a small man with extravagant appetites, including alcohol, which, to paraphrase Eliza Doolittle, almost "done him in."