If it should be my task, I being God,
From whirling atoms to evolve your mate,
With hands omnipotent I should create
A great-souled hero, with the starlight shod.
The subject worlds should tremble at his nod
And all the angel host upon him wait
Yet he should leave his pomp and splendid state
And kneel to kiss the ground whereon you trod.
But God, who like a little child is wise,
Made me, a common thing of earthly clay;
Then bade me go and see within your eyes
The flame of love that burns more bright than day,
And as I looked I knew with wild surprise
I was transformed—your heart in my heart lay.
When first the golden dawn of love was breaking
In your white soul, I kissed your gentle hand,
And all my heart with strange, sweet pain was aching,
A wild, new joy I could not understand.
And now, when I your slender fingers taking
Keep them enslaved to my hot lips’ demand,
I feel that same strange thirst that knows no slaking
But then—why should I wish to understand?