Kisses in the dark
‘‘SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT shows,” proclaimed my English poetry primer, “that moonlight on stained glass does not produce this effect.” The footnote was to a line in The Eve of St Agnes — the only poem with a description of sexual intercourse approved for young minds — in which “warm gules” appear like brothel-neon on the heroine’s “fair breast”, while “her fragrant bodice creeps rustling to her knees.” (Maybe Keats didn’t know that St Agnes defended her virtue even in a bordello.)
