Les plus lus ▸
Sarojini Naidu
The music sighs and slumbers.
It stirs and sleeps again . . .
Hush, it wakes and weeps and murmurs
Like a woman's heart in pain ;
Now it laughs and calls and coaxes.
Like a lover in the night.
Now it pants with sudden longing.
Now it sobs with spent delight.
Like bright and wind-blown lilies,
The dancers sway and shine.
Swift in a rhythmic circle.
Soft in a rhythmic line ;
Their lithe limbs gleam like amber
Thro' their veils of golden gauze,
As they glide and bend and beckon,
As they wheel and wind and pause.
A WOMAN waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were
lacking.
Sex contains all,
Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk;
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals,
All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth,
These are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
In nature apt to like when I did see
Beauties, which were of many carats fine,
My boiling sprites did thither soon incline,
And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee:
But finding not those restless flames in me,
Which others said did make their souls to pine,
I thought those babes of some pin's hurt did whine,
By my love judging what love's pain might be.
But while I thus with this young lion played,
Mine eyes (shall I say curst or blest?) beheld
Stella; now she is nam'd, need more be said?
In her sight I a lesson new have spell'd,
I now hav learn'd Love right, and learn'd even so,
As who by being poisoned doth poison know.
who was I being too free
in the city of desire
before having anything in my head
when my belly was it
like the raw ground in fields
wanton with sun and sleep
hands having to lie
to be old and content
having all the marks of honest
lived-in desire
having to keep
will the missing kiss
grow on his lip
like a difficult word
is love is a hard game to play
or an inconvenience
on the way to sleep
or to my mind
a great delirium
between joy and concern
I pay as much as any
for her deep eye
but not to be known
no I am buried in it
then who will see me
asleep with mouth open
am I the whore here
my desire full of convenience
a cold place is my mind
ear of ice
all the din of desire
is ants in a cake
people at their sports
the tin ill morning
where the plague grows
where desires make a rough freight
promise me night comes to pay
one day
I clog myself with desire
and miss the peak
alone in my barrow
I endeavor to see
give two loves for one
late-night stay
in my book of tales you desire me
not to speak
only to touch
a pair of shoes let alone all day
seldom complain
despair is an art
a peach in the palm
is a sort of pleasure
like her mouth when
she speaks of travel
as far as another
home world