Lesbia
Use no more speech now;
Let the silence spread gold hair above us
Fold on delicate fold;
You had the ivory of my life to carve.
Use no more speech.
....
And Picus of Mirandola is dead;
And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of,
Hermes, and Thoth, and Christ, are rotten now,
Rotten and dank.
....
And through it all I see your pale Greek face;
Tenderness makes me as eager as a little child
To love you
You morsel left half cold on Caesar’s plate.
That last line is a triumph of the disagreeable. Mr. Aldington’s beauty does not cloy; he knows how to spice it: