XIX

Set the great Flemish hour aflame!

Your senses of all leisure maim!

Cast down with blows that joy even where they hurt

The hands that mock to avert!

Al things pick up to bed that lead ye to

Be naked that ye woo!

Tear up, pluck up, like earth who treasure seek,

When the chest's ring doth peep,

The thoughts that cover thoughts of the acts of heat

This great day does intreat!

Now seem all hands pressing the paps as if

They meant them juice to give!

Now seem all things pairing on one another,

Hard flesh soft flesh to smother,

And hairy legs and buttocks balled to split

White legs mid which they shift.

Yet these mixed mere thoughts in each mind but speak

The day's push love to wreak,

The man's ache to have felt possession.

The woman's man to have on,

The abstract surge of life clearly to reach

The bodies' concrete beach.

Yet some work of this doth the real day don.

Now are skirts lifted in the servants’ hall,

And the whored belly's stall

Ope to the horse that enters in a rush,

Half late, too near the gush.

And even now doth an elder guest emmesh

A flushed young girl in a dark nook apart,

And leads her slow to move his produced flesh.

Look how she likes with something in her heart

To feel her hand work the protruded dart!