From "Dolores: Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs" by A.C. Swinburne

By the hunger of change and emotion
     By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
     By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
     The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire,
     And blind as the night,
By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
     Through kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
     Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
     By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
     Our Lady of Pain.

Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining
     The light fire in the veins of a boy?
But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,
     Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;
Less careful of labour and glory
     Than the elders whose hair had uncurled;
And young, but with fancies as hoary
     And grey as the world.

I have passed from the outermost portal
     To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;
What care though the service be mortal?
     O our Lady of Torture what care?
All thine the wine that I pour is,
     The last of the chalice we drain,
O fierce and luxurious Dolores,
     Our Lady of Pain.

All thine the new wine of desire,
     The fruit of four lips as they clung
Till the hair and the eyelids took fire,
     The foam of the serpentine tongue,
The froth of the serpents of pleasure,
     More salt than the foam of the sea,
Now felt as a flame, now at leisure
     As wine shed for me.

Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,
     Marked cross from the womb and perverse!
They have found out the secret to cozen
     The gods that constrain us and curse;
They alone, they are wise, and none other;
     Give me place, even me, in their train,
O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,
     Our Lady of Pain.

[. . . .]

And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,
    And satiate with comfortless hours;
And we know thee, how all men belie thee,
     And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;
The passion that slays and recovers,
     The pangs and the kisses that rain
On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers
     Our Lady of Pain.
The desire of thy furious embraces
     Is more than the wisdom of years,
On the blossom though blood lies in traces,
     Though the foliage be sodden with tears.
For the lords in whose keeping the door is
     That opens on all who draw breath
Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores,
     The myrtle to death.
And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,
     And they mixed and made peace after strife;
Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;
     Death tingled with blood, and was life.
Like lovers they melted and tingled,
     In the dusk of thine innermost fane;
In the darkness they murmured and mingled
     Our Lady of Pain.
In a twilight where virtues are vices,
     In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,
To a tune that enthralls and entices,
     They were wed, and the twain were as one.
For the tune from thine altar hath sounded
     Since God bade the world's work begin,
And the fume of thine incense abounded, To sweeten the sin.

Love listens, and paler than ashes,
     Through his curls as the crown on them slips,
Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,
     And laughs with insatiable lips.
Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,
     With music that scares the profane;
Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses, Our Lady of Pain.

Though shalt blind his bright eye though he wrestle,
     Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;
In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,
     In thy hands all thy cruelties thrive.
In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,
     In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;
Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him
     Asleep and awake.

Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses
     With juice not of fruit nor of bud;
When the sense in the spirit reposes,
     Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.
Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,
     Who would live and not languish or feign,
O sleepless and deadly Dolores,
     Our Lady of Pain.