Contributor: E.S. Wynn

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Oh, if my heart were but an angel’s drum,
Or some other divine percussive to beat
The steady rhythm of your impassioned breath
Across my brow, my mouth, my throat, my chest,
And bring forth the very blossom of the new day,
Across your honey-sweet lips, oh love’s unrequited torture–
And if my hands could but caress and touch again,
Explore the lay of your every hill and dale again,
And run quick across the shiver strands of fine-spun gold
That grow secret in the sweet seclusion of your nape.
That scent– no, that sweet censor-drift of earthbound angels,
Drawn from the loving arms of heaven,
But paltry lepers beside your beauty,
Is peerless bliss,
Is the most divine waft that my soul could ever hunger for.
I would cross a thousand deserts,
Sail across a thousand oceans,
Breech the walls of a thousand fortresses,
And depose a thousand kings from a thousand rightful thrones
If only to see your seraphim eyes again,
If only to see you, and then even if only to part again at the end,
As your smile, fair lady, is far more glorious
Than any victory, any earthly possession,
That any man could ever hope to win or seize,
And it is but a small, small part of a greater you,
A facet in a form that is surely the artifice of angels,
For no child of man or god
Could ever hope to forge such a perfect being,
Given all the ages of time and all the tools
Of every sculptor, artist, poet, or blacksmith
To ever grace the green earth with his footsteps
Or meet the face of love naked as a babe at birth.


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E.S. Wynn is the author of over 50 books.