Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

It was done, I cannot say why and where I may not tell,
Somewhere before blush of day, somehow ere the matin bell;
Sweet white bosoms came to me 'twixt the gleaming and the gloom,
Wonderful and soft to see, dear and terrible as doom
In the sureness of the pureness
Which alone doth make man free, giving to the spirit room;
Curtained was each face from light, shrouded were the limbs and form,
In a shadow rosy bright simply showed the rapture warm
Swelling now to sudden flower, swooning then in secret bliss,
With the poetry of power gathered to a crimson kiss.

All my passion, all my heart surged to meet that gentle thing,
Thrilling through my every part till my being seemed to sing;
Sweet white bosoms kindly came thus into my lonely lot,
With the clearness as of flame and a splendour without spot;
Drawing nearer still and clearer
In the shyness more than shame, yet with love that wavered not;
Beckoning to something glad, something that desired to bless
Far beyond the joys I had, in their dumb deliciousness;
And I felt around me curl'd arms as delicate as air,
Fragrance of a finer world where is nothing but the fair.

Then the black breasts of the night which had made me sadly err
Melted into misty flight, with a silence sinister;
Sweet white bosoms took their place by a modest miracle,
Breathing everywhere a grace uttered but ineffable;

And my feelings' grand revealings
Waxed as infinite as space, in their golden crucible:
Virgin fancies, vestal thought veiled in holiest attire
Of their nakedness and wrought from delight and from desire,
Floated under me and round, till I seemed with throbbing charms
By some ecstasy enwound in all lovely women's arms.