HAPPIEST

by: George Sterling (1869-1926)

ALLING you now, not for your flesh I call,

Nor for the mad, long raptures of the night

And passion in its beauty and its might,

When the ecstatic bodies rise and fall.

I cannot feign: God knows I see it all--

The flaming senses, raving with delight,

The leopards, swift and terrible and white,

Within the loins that shudder as they crawl.

 

All that could I exultingly forego,

Could I but stand, one flash of time, and see

Your heavenly, entrancing face, and know

I stood most blest of all beneath the sun,

Hearing these words from your fond lips to me:

"I love, love you, and love no other one!"

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