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 O splendid and sterile Dolores, Our Lady of Pain.

There are sins it may be to discover, There are deeds it may be to delight. What new work wilt thou find for thy lover, What new passions for daytime or night? What spells that they know not a word of Whose lives are as leaves overblown? What tortures undreamt of, unheard of, Unwritten, unknown?

Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart! On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody, Though they sting till it shudder and smart, More kind than the love we adore is, They hurt not the heart or the brain, O bitter and tender Dolores, Our Lady of Pain.

As our kisses relax and redouble, From the lips and the foam and the fangs Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble, No dream of impossible pangs? With the sweet of the sins of old ages Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore? Too sweet is the rind, say the sages, Too bitter the core.