Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/87

 Yea, though she scourge thee, sweetest, for my sake, Blossom not thorns and flowers not blood should break. Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressed To the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast! Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fed On the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled! That with my tongue I felt them, and could taste The faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist! That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat Thy breasts like honey! that from face to feet Thy body were abolished and consumed, And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed! Ah, ah, thy beauty! like a beast it bites, Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites. Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet, The paces and the pauses of thy feet! Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer air The fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair! Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong, Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song; Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white, And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite As honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells, With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shells And blood like purple blossom at the tips Quivering; and pain made perfect in thy lips For my sake when I hurt thee; O that I Durst crush thee out of life with love, and die,