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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  Song: ‘O touch me not, unless thy soul’

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Song: ‘O touch me not, unless thy soul’

By Ella Dietz Clymer (b. 1856?)

[Born in New York, N. Y. The Triumph of Love. 1878.—The Triumph of Time. 1884.]

O TOUCH me not, unless thy soul

Can claim my soul as thine;

Give me no earthly flowers that fade,

No love, but love divine:

For I gave thee immortal flowers,

That bloomed serene in heavenly bowers.

Look not with favor on my face,

Nor answer my caress,

Unless my soul have first found grace

Within thy sight; express

Only the truth, though it should be

Cold as the ice on northern sea.

O never speak of love to me,

Unless thy heart can feel

That in the face of Deity

Thou wouldst that love reveal:

For God is love, and His bright law

Should find our hearts without one flaw.