Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Forbidden Fruit

Anonymous

(American. 1895) THE WORLD was finished. On their ceaseless flight
God sped the jewels which adorn the night;
Darkness rolled back before the light of day.
And night shrank blushing from the morning ray.
The skies were brilliant with a crimson hue,	5
Which softly blended with the azure blue;
Each morn new beauties would the earth unfold,
Draping the heavens with the tints of gold;
While through the garden came the perfumed breeze,
Sweet with fragrance of the budding trees;	10
And limpid babbling streams flowed gently by,
Pure as the fount which crystals in the eye;
While flowers bloomed with nature’s fairest dyes,
Beneath the purple of the sunny skies.
In pristine vigor man remained alone	15
Till woman came to share his leafy throne,
Fully as fair, but with a softer shade,
The last and best of all the things God made
They both from nature in their freshness came,
But neither knew the blushing tints of shame;	20
The flowing tresses only veiled from view
Those tempting charms that were as rare as new.
They wandered careless through the leafy grove,
Basking in sunshine and their sinless love,
Like children playing on a verdant lawn,	25
As free from passion as a timid fawn.
No clouds had yet obscured the brilliant sun;
The storm and tempest had not yet begun.
It seemed that nature for itself did grieve
When Adam knew the first embrace of Eve.	30
Passion as yet had never warmed their frames
Nor stirred their blood with its insidious flames.
Children in thought, but full of manly life,
Their sleeping demons knew no heat nor strife.
Love was a passion hidden in each heart,	35
Whose wild desires time would to each impart,
Love has one object and ulterior goal,
One blissful moment which deludes the soul,
When melting nature gently dies away
And cools the rapture of the heated clay.	40
Take lust from love and love would be no more—
Life has no pleasure but the hopes in store.
The blushing virgin to the altar led
Looks fondly forward to the marriage bed;
Sighs for the moment when a husband’s kiss	45
Preludes the rapture of a greater bliss;
Sinks in the pressure of his burning arms,
And gives unasked her most desirous charms.
The garden scenes beneath fair Eden’s bower
Are re-enacted every day and hour,	50
And every woman in her heart would grieve
Were there no Adam for each loving Eve.
This one great lesson from St. Paul we learn
Better to marry than a virgin burn.
During the day and oft at eventide,	55
They both reposed in slumber, side by side;
Yet had not dreamed there was a fount within
Lying in wait to tempt them both to sin—
If it were sin to give way to the flood
Of passion lurking dormant in the blood;	60
For, all unconscious of those hidden fires,
They ne’er had yet felt love’s sweet, warm desires
Nor known the joys they ne’er had tasted,
Nor all the hours they both had wasted.
Had they but known love’s pure and fond delight	65
“Forbidden Fruit” were tasted the first night.
While Eve was lying in fair Eden’s bower,
Herself the fairest and the sweetest flower,
She sank in slumber near a murmuring stream
And dreamed a sweet and most delightful dream;	70
For, while all shadowed on the grass she lay,
Her truant soul was roaming far away.
She thought herself within the groves above,
Where angels whispered of the sweets of love—
Thought a man was lying in her blissful arms,	75
Who kissed the cherries of her bosom’s charms;
Sought her full lips and kissed an ardent kiss,
Which woke the rapture of an unborn bliss.
Her form lay stretched upon the flowing heath.
While quick and hot came forth sighing breath,	80
An arm was thrown above her golden head,
One knee was raised from off her rosy bed,
One hand was toying with the silken hair
That hid the treasures sweetly buried there;
Her bosom, whiter than the ocean’s foam,	85
Rose white as marble in a passion dome,
While on each breast in ruby lustre shone
The red round nipple that surmounts each zone;
And gently downward, like a floating wave,
Lay the rich portals of her downy cave,	90
Whose full red lips, half hidden in their moss,
Shone like bright corals in their dewy gloss,
And her round limbs, like ivory polished bright,
Whose rosy hues were struggling through the white,
Lay coiled in beauty as she thus reposed,	95
With all her maiden charms at once exposed;
The fairest thing of all God’s work below,
As fair as marble and as white as snow;
Man’s brightest jewel and God’s purest gift
Lay softly sleeping, but without a shift.	100
From such a sight no mortal man could turn
Who felt the fires of manhood in him burn.
Priests preach of virtue, but of them beware,
They would not turn from such a tempting snare.
First they’d indulge and then perhaps might pray	105
That God would humble their rebellious clay.
Adam beheld her, as in slumber sweet
Some seraph seemed those rosy lips to meet;
Hears her soft sighs and sees her bosom swell,
And felt the blood within his veins rebel;	110
For such a sight would daze the purest eyes
Of angels looking from the skies;
A sight that man has never yet withstood
Who felt love’s virus stealing through his blood.
Yet Adam knew not that this vision bright	115
Which lay unconscious of his raptured sight
Was made by nature as his better part,
The one sweet solace of his troubled heart;
Knew not the syren in a woman’s guise
Would turn the garden into Paradise—	120
Paradise lost—but Paradise but found
When first he saw Eve sleeping on the ground.
Night came, all gilded with the sunset’s dyes,
Studded with jewels the mild azure of the skies;
The moon rose softly on her upward flight,	125
The queen of beauty and the gem of night,
While flowers paled with the departing day
And closed their petals with the sun’s last ray.
The birds had ceased to sing their evening song,
Save one, which into night his strains prolong,	130
Pouring, in liquid measure, love’s soft tale
Through the soft shadows of the flowery dale,
Beguiling sleep awhile from languid eyes.
Like some fair spirit in a worldly guise.
All living things were sinking to repose,	135
Dreading no danger from dark lurking foes;
For on the fruit man had not yet been fed.
And Eve, the virgin, had her maidenhead.
Adam and Eve, at this sweet twilight hour,
Sought their repose within a rustic bower;	140
But ere the silken gauze of balmy sleep
Could o’er their drowsy eyelids creep,
Eve thought her of the dream she’d had again
And felt its memories stealing through her brain.
A soft, voluptuous shade stole o’er her eyes,	145
The pulse of love within began to rise;
Her cheeks were burning with a new desire,
Her veins were boiling with an inward fire,
Her lips were glowing with a warmth all new,
Her breast was heaving as the passion grew;	150
Each nerve seemed thrilling through her heated frame,
One blissful thought which ne’er had had a name,
One blissful wish which she had never known,
One fond desire that love could be her own.
Gently an arm o’er Adam’s breast she threw,	155
While her lips moistened with the gathering dew;
Her eyes seemed swimming in a sea of pearls,
As from her breast she brushed the flowing curls,
And, swelling high, her bosom seemed to flow
With fire of passion fierce which burned below.	160
Love, now unfettered, she could not restrain,
But felt it surging through each swelling vein,
Rousing the serpent coiled within her breast
Whose strong desire had never been repressed.
To Adam’s lips she softly pressed her own,	165
While Adam’s arms around her form were thrown;
Yet, even then, he did not dream the bliss
That Eve awakened by her fervent kiss;
Knew not the joys that kindred natures feel
As love’s sweet fires through the system steal;	170
But each caress that stirred his tranquil blood
Thrilled through his body with a fiery flood,
Lighting his face and burning in each vein,
Until its raptures nothing could restrain.
His manly bosom heaved with many a sigh,	175
While lurid fires flashed from either eye;
The breath came hot upon his burning lips
While passion tingled to his finger tips;
His frame was but a mass of heated clay,
One strong desire now held unbounded sway;	180
And yet he little knew what lay before,
What mystic pleasure was for him in store.
But Eve, still trembling with her own desires,
Added new fuel to her Adam’s fires,
Glued her wet lips to his hot, glowing face	185
And held him closely in her warm embrace,
Distilling passion through her melting sighs
And rousing demons with her flashing eyes.
Night looked on calmly, as if nature smiled
To think that Adam should be thus beguiled.	190
The moon now threw a shadow o’er the scene,
As if she fain their wantoness would screen;
And e’en the stars half hid their sparkling rays,
As if they blushed at such a scene to gaze.
Eve, taught by instinct and inflamed by love,	195
Would fain the pleasure of their passion prove;
Felt that the spot now half consumed by heat
Was the choice fruit they were forbid to eat;
And, like all women since that blissful time,
Was half inclined to perpetrate a crime.	200
A crime so sweet that all have followed suit,
And like it better for its being stolen fruit.
Adam, meanwhile, had found his manhood’s pride,
And Eve now acted as its faithful guide;
Gently her hand around its ivory stole	205
And turned it quickly toward its natural goal;
Then, lying prone upon her snowy back,
Opened before it an untrodden track.
Ecstatic joy her every nerve did thrill,
Till heart and thought and even soul stood still.	210
Warmer and warmer were her kisses given,
Until the pleasure seemed to her a heaven.
And thus she lay in that intense delight
Which women feel upon their wedding night,
When heart and soul commingle in a kiss	215
And love’s fond rapture gives hymenial bliss.
But, all too soon, each felt their strength give way
As love dissolved in passion’s heated spray,
And pouring forth, came then his gushing flood,
Mixed with crimson of Eve’s virgin blood.	220
Then Adam sank, half-fainting, on her breast,
With lingering sighs that could not be repressed.
His eyes now gleamed not with a fiery glance,
While o’er his frame there came that blissful trance
Which poor dissolving nature sweetly feels	225
When love enraptured breaks a maiden’s seals.
Blushing and modest, with unconscious grace,
Eve hid ’neath Adam’s arm her glowing face;
For now that passion had swept o’er her form,
She lay all quivering from its pleasant storm,	230
And only wished her burning cheeks to hide
The sweet, warm blushes of a new-made bride;
While in her eyes a humid vapor stole,
Which for a time seemed clouding o’er her soul,
And trembling sweetly with her new delight	235
Felt light departing from her failing sight.
Ah! who shall paint the rapture they first knew
Beneath the sparkling canopy of blue,
While in the pride of their full strength and youth
They tasted sweetly of the cup of truth	240
And found that joy till then to man unknown—
A priceless boon which he might call his own.
And this pure bliss which in the garden came,
Still thrills as sweetly through each mortal frame,
And each new couple on their marriage bed,	245
When husband takes his young wife’s maidenhead,
Repeats again the same old pleasure o’er
And finds in love a never-failing store,
When to her husband she gives up the gem,
The sweetest jewel in love’s diadem.	250
Hark! to the mutt’rings that are heard afar,
As nature feels an elemental war.
Thunder is rolling booming in the skies
And vivid lightning blinds their tearful eyes;
The winds shriek onward with a shrieking blast,	255
And deep with gloom the skies are overcast.
While from the clouds the pelting rains descend
And with the storm the war of wild beasts blend;
Each brute feels all its instincts wildly stirred,
While in the air is heard the screaming bird.	260
In one wild shriek a thousand tongues give vent
To the deep passion which the world has sent.
Now storm and darkness settle o’er the land
And the blue sea comes bellowing on the sand;
The massive trees before the whirlwind rock,	265
The earth now trembles with the earthquake’s shock,
For man has heard from God his awful doom.
No more the fruits of Eden’s fruitful soil,
His sweat shall moisten all he earns by toil,
While Eve in anguish shall to life give birth	270
And leave a heritage of woe on earth.
God made them pure, but out of worldly dust,
And from the clay they gather all the lust.
From that sweet scene, within the grove began,
Came the sorrows that have tortured man;	275
And, till the trump of Gabriel gives us peace,
Our woes entailed on earth shall never cease.