Sex isn’t sin, ah no! sex isn’t sin,
nor is it dirty, not until the dirty mind pokes in.
We shall do as we like, sin is obsolete, the young assert.
Sin is obsolete, sin is obsolete, but not so dirt.
And sex, alas, gets dirtier and dirtier, worked from the mind.
Sex gets dirtier and dirtier, the more it is fooled with, we find.
And dirt, if it isn’t sin, is worse, so there you are!
Why don’t you know what’s what, young people? seems to me you’re
far
duller than your grandmothers. But leave that aside.
Let’s be honest at last about sex, or show at least that we’ve tried.
Sex isn’t sin, it’s a delicate flow between women and men,
and the sin is to damage the flow, force it up or dirty it or suppress it
again.
Sex isn’t something you’ve got to play with; sex is you.
It’s the flow of your life, it’s your moving self, and you are due
to be true to the nature of it, its reserve, its sensitive pride
that it always has to begin with, and by which you ought to abide.
Know yourself, O know yourself, that you are mortal; and know.
the sensitive delicacy of your sex, in its ebbing to and fro,
and the mortal reserve of your sex, as it stays in your depths below.
And don’t, with the nasty, prying mind, drag if out from its deeps
and finger it and force it, and shatter the rhythm it keeps
when it’s left alone, as it stirs and rouses and sleeps.
O — know yourself, O know your sex! You must know, there is no
escape.
You must know sex in order to save it, your deepest self, from the rape
of the itching mind and the mental self, with its pruriency always
agape.