The Bayadere

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays

More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid

By the light veils they burned and blushed amid,

Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways,

And there was invitation in her voice

And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes,

As though above the gates of Paradise

Fair verses bade, Be welcome and rejoice!

O’er rugs where mottled blue and green and red

Blent in the patterns of the Orient loom,

Like a bright butterfly from bloom to bloom,

She floated with delicious arms outspread.

There was no pose she took, no move she made,

But all the feverous, love-envenomed flesh

Wrapped round as in the gladiator’s mesh

And smote as with his triple-forked blade.

I thought that round her sinuous beauty curled

Fierce exhalations of hot human love, —

Around her beauty valuable above

The sunny outspread kingdoms of the world;

Flowing as ever like a dancing fire

Flowed her belled ankles and bejewelled wrists,

Around her beauty swept like sanguine mists

The nimbus of a thousand hearts’ desire.

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Poems in English 

• Phantasm by Poetry In English
• Long I waited in vain by Poetry In English
• was_then.html by Poetry In English
• phantasm.html by Poetry In English
• long_i_waited_in_vain.html by Poetry In English
• Wind on the Hill by A. A. Milne by Alan Alexander Milne
• Us Two by AA Milne by Alan Alexander Milne
• twinkletoes.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• The Morning Walk by Alan Alexander Milne
• the_kings_breakfast.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• the_dormouse_and_the_doctor.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• the_christening.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• Teddy Bear by Alan Alexander Milne
• rice_pudding.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• politeness.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• Missing by Alan Alexander Milne
• market_square.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• lines_and_squares.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• if_i_were_king.html by Alan Alexander Milne
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