He munched her neck with kisses, while the vine
Crawled in her back."
Or this:—
"As I stooped, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth."
Or this:—
"Have seen your lifted silken skirt
Advertise dainties through the dirt!"
Or this:—
"What more prize than love to impel thee,
Grip and lip my limbs as I tell thee!"[1]
Passages like these are the common stock of the walking gentlemen of the Fleshly School. I cannot forbear expressing my wonder, by the way, at the kind of women whom it seems the unhappy lot of these gentlemen to encounter. I have lived as long in the world as they have, but never yet came across persons of the other sex who conduct themselves in the manner described. Females who bite, scratch, scream, bubble, munch, sweat, writhe, twist, wriggle, foam, and in a general way slaver over their lovers, must surely possess some extraordinary qualities to counteract their otherwise most offensive mode of conducting themselves. It appears, however, on examination, that their poet-lovers conduct themselves in a similar manner. They, too, bite, scratch, scream, bubble, munch, sweat,
- ↑ Mr. Rossetti accuses me of garbling these four extracts, and alleges that they have a totally different effect when read with their context. In reply to this, let me observe that the four poems which supply these four extracts are full of coarseness from the first line to the last, and that no extract can fitly convey their unwholesomeness and indecency. See après, p. 64.
