I KNOW YOUR LIPS ARE BOUGHT

by: Arthur Symons (1865-1945)

      KNOW your lips are bought like any fruit;
      I know your love, and of your love the root;
      I know your kisses toll for love that dies
      In kissing, to be buried in your eyes;
      I know I am degraded for your sake,
      And that my shame will not so much as make
      Your glory, or be reckoned in the debt
      Of memories you are mindful to forget.
      All this I know, and knowing it, I come
      Delighted to my daily martyrdom;
      And, rich in love beyond the common store,
      Become for you a beggar, to implore
      The broken crumbs that from your table fall,
      Freely, in your indifference, on all.

"I know your lips are bought" is reprinted from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown Publishers, 1921.

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