Pain Poetry
Odd that I’ve never before run across this stanza from Anactoria, by Algernon Charles Swinburne:
Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touch
Thy pores of sense with torture, and make bright
Thine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light?
Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note,
Catch the sob’s middle music in thy throat,
Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these
A lyre of many faultless agonies?
Thanks to Zille Defeu.
Actually, Swinburne is one of the better-known figures from the past who was into the scene. Certainly the canings he received as a boy had a great deal to do with this, although I believe it is likely there was some earlier event that probably pushed him in this direction. He once made a remark as an adult about wishing he could see again the flogging block at Eton. His corporal proclivities were known to if not always well-received by his contemporaries, one of whom referred to him as “SWINE BORNE”.