Her cheeks are hot, her cheeks are white; <br />The white girl hardly breathes to-night, <br />So faint the pulses come and go, <br />That waken to a smouldering glow <br />The morbid faintness of her white. <br /> <br />What drowsing heats of sense, desire <br />Longing and languorous, the fire <br />Of what white ashes, subtly mesh <br />The fascination of her flesh <br />Into a breathing web of fire? <br /> <br />Only her eyes, only her mouth, <br />Live, in the agony of drouth, <br />Athirst for that which may not be: <br />The desert of virginity <br />Aches in the hotness of her mouth. <br /> <br />I take her hands into my hands, <br />Silently, and she understands; <br />I set my lips upon her lips; <br />Shuddering to her finger-tips <br />She strains my hands within her hands. <br /> <br />I set my lips on hers; they close <br />Into a false and phantom rose; <br />Upon her thirsting lips I rain <br />A flood of kisses, and in vain; <br />Her lips inexorably close. <br /> <br />Through her closed lips that cling to mine, <br />Her hands that hold me and entwine, <br />Her body that abondoned lies, <br />Rigid with sterile ecstasies, <br />A shiver knits her flesh to mine. <br /> <br />Life sucks into a mist remote <br />Her fainting lips, her throbbing throat; <br />Her lips that open to my lips, <br />And, hot against her finger-tips, <br />The pulses leaping in her throat.<br /><br />Arthur Symons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bianca-2/
