My Love is One and Only

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My love is one and only, without peer,
lovely above all Egypt’s lovely girls.
On the horizon of my seeing,
see her, rising,
Glistening goddess of the sunrise star
bright in the forehead of a lucky year.
So there she stands, epitome
of shining, shedding light,

 imhotepwatchingduel.jpg (6104 bytes)`

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 Her eyebrows, gleaming darkly, marking
eyes which dance and wander
Sweet are those lips, which chatter
(but never a word too much),
And the line of the long neck lovely, dropping
(since song’s notes slide that way)
To young breasts firm in the bouncing light
which shimmers that blueshadowed sidefall of hair.		 anck-closeup.jpg (6728 bytes)

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 And slim are those arms, overtoned with gold,
those fingers which touch like a brush of lotus.
And (ah) how the curve of her back slips gently
by a whisper of waist to god’s plenty below.
(Such thighs as hers pass knowledge
of loveliness known in the old days.)

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Dressed in the perfect flesh of woman
(heart would run captive to such slim arms),
she ladies it over the earth,

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 Schooling the neck of each schoolboy male
to swing on a swivel to see her move.

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 (He who could hold that body tight
would know at last
perfection of delight—
Best of the bullyboys,
first among lovers.)		 leaningtokiss.jpg (7040 bytes)

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 Look you, all men, at that golden going,
like Our Lady of Love,
without peer.

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This ancient Egyptian poem is copied from The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Vol. I (1995 ed.)

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