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This poem is taken from PN Review 52, Volume 13 Number 2, November - December 1986.

Poems Christopher Caudwell
The Secret

I will not strive to win
Your body to touch, to waken
With these hot hands the flesh
Imagined well enough
Night and day.

I will disdain to move
To gleams of appetite
Your mind, that might be swayed
By the effect of speech
Such as this.

I will wholly delete
From the world's polite stare
Evidence of any love
Beyond the veiled witness
Of this song.

I will forbid my heart
To entertain at night
...


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