Leves Amores

I Your kisses, and the way you curl, Delicious and distracting girl, Into one's arms, and round about, Luxuriously in and out Twining inextricably, as twine The clasping tangles of the vine; Strong to embrace and long to kiss, And strenuous for the sharper bliss, Insatiably enamoured of The ultimate ecstasy of love. So loving to be loved, so gay And greedy for our holiday; And then how prettily you sleep! You nestle close, and let me keep My straying fingers in the nest Of your warm comfortable breast; And as I lie and dream awake, Unsleeping for your sleeping sake, I feel the very pulse and heat Of your young life-blood beat, and beat With mine; and you are mine, my sweet! II The little bedroom papered red, The gas's faint malodorous light, And one beside me in the bed, Who chatters, chatters, half the night. I drowse and listen, drowse again, And still, although I would not hear, Her stream of chatter, like the rain, Is falling, falling on my ear. The bed-clothes stifle me, I ache With weariness, my eyelids prick; I hate, until I long to break, That clock for its tyrannic tick. And still beside me, through the heat Of this September night, I feel Her body's warmth upon the sheet Burn through my limbs from head to heel. And still I see her profile lift Its tiresome line above the hair, That streams, a dark and tumbled drift, Across the pillow that I share