Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
          Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
    The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
          Red mouth like a venomous flower;
     Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
        And the loves that complete and control
    All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
        That wear out the soul.

    O lips full of lust and of laughter,
        Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,
    Bite hard, lest remembrance come after
        And press with new lips where you pressed.
    For my heart too springs up at the pressure,
        Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;
    Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,
        Ere pain come in turn.

    Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;
        Thou art fed with perpetual breath,
    And alive after infinite changes,
        And fresh from the kisses of death;
    Of languors rekindled and rallied,
        Of barren delights and unclean,
    Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid
        And poisonous queen.

    Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?
        Men touch them, and change in a trice
    The lilies and languors of virtue
        For the raptures and roses of vice.

    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?

    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.

    By the hunger of change and emotion,
        By the thirst of unbearable things,
    By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
        By the pleasure that winces and stings,
    The delight that consumes the desire,
        The desire that outruns the delight,
    By the cruelty deaf as a fire
        And blind as the night,

    By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
        Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
    By the lips intertwisted and bitten
        Till the foam has a savour of blood,
    By the pulse as it rises and falters,
        By the hands as they slacken and strain,
    I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
        Our Lady of Pain.

    And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,
        And they mixed and made peace after strife;
    Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;
        Death mingled with blood, and was life.
    Like lovers they melted and mingled,
        In the dusk of thine innermost fane;
    In the darkness they murmured and mingled,
        Our Lady of Pain.

    In a twilight where virtues are vices,
        In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,
    To a tune that enthralls and entices,
        They were wed, and the twain were as one.
    For the tune from thine altar hath sounded
        Since God bade the world's work begin,
    And the fume of thine incense abounded,
        To sweeten the sin.

    Love listens, and paler than ashes,
        Through her curls as the crown on them slips,
    Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,
        And laughs with insatiable lips.
    Thou shalt hush her with heavy caresses,
        With music that scares the profane;
    Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,
        Our Lady of Pain.

    Thou shalt blind her bright eyes though she wrestle,
        Thou shalt chain her light limbs though she strive;
    In her lips all thy serpents shall nestle,
        In her hands all thy cruelties thrive.
    In the daytime thy voice shall go through her,
        In her dreams she shall feel thee and ache;
    Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue her
        Asleep and awake.

    Thou shalt touch and make redder her roses
        With juice not of fruit nor of bud;
    When the sense in the spirit reposes,
        Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.
    
As of old when the world's heart was lighter, 

    - Charles Swinburne