RODIN

LE BAISER

Published in the Weekly Critical Review

Paris, France

12 November 1903

(page 392)

Infinite delicacy in great strength

Holds the white girl and draws her into love.

All her lithe subtlety, her lovely length,

Is sealed in the embrace about, above

Her visible life. What mastery of repose,

Compulsion of motion lurks for us therein

As we gaze back on Greece, as Nature glows,

Simple and sacred, with no thought of sin,

Yet born to trouble us, to fascinate.

Here we are, back i’ th’ springtime of the earth;

God above man; and above God, dire fate.

Ancient cosmogony of peace and mirth!

Careless, we careless, do invoke thy rime

Of the ancient rapture of the olden time.