Sonnet CCLI:
CCLI
When with the courage lent me by thy smile,
I laid my hands upon thy sacred form,
Dared, passion-wild, thy scented mouth to warm
With cleaving kisses, unrepelled the while;
Was it thy patience or my venturous guile
Shook virtue’s outworks with a fiery storm,
And made her guards the trembling ramparts swarm,
To meet a foe who came in friendly style?
I know not, Love; but since that trustful day
I grow more careful of myself, less stained
By worldly touch, as though that touch profaned.
I am all thine, more like thee; if thou’lt say
Those kisses brushed thy purest bloom away,
Say also this, that what thou lost, I gained.
