Classic Poem

O sacred flower whose marvellous fragrance, blent
With our grey planet's golden-haired first dream,
Added strange magic to the first moon-beam
That watched our world's first lovers' deep content;
O flower, within whose luscious petals pent
Lurks as a prisoner woman's kiss I deem,
Above thy sweet abyss of scent I seem
To linger, as over Eve's lips Adam leant.

Oh may I, when my pale gaze fronts the night
Amid whose blackness blind Death reaps and sows
Groping with bloodless wrists and fingers white,
Take with me to the land that no man knows
Memories of zoneless passion's wild delight
Mixed with thy fragrance, never-dying rose!