Dinning thunder of your heartbeat
Pulsing here beneath my lips
Telegraphs along the length
Of veins from neck to fingertips.

Heart that calls, I cannot answer
Trapped so deep in sleep's embrace.
Your incessant measured knocking
Cannot stir me from my place.
Torturer! Have you no mercy?
Cease, now! Let me sleep the day!
No, the tolling instrument
Of torment timpanist must play.
Siren, must you lure me further?
You invade my every dream.
Raging rush of carmine liquid
Drowns me, parched, within its stream.

How to bid him cease his thunder?
Stop him? You will cease to be.
That, unless you join the blood-dance
Tooth to neck, both you and me.
Dare I do it? Would you join me
Thirsting through eternity?
But what difference? After yours
Another heart would beat for me.
Still, the blood-dance never ceases;
Drummers leave, the dance remains.
Hearts will cease; the drummer drumming
Slack his pace and stop--in vain.

Dinner-gong! Do you not know
You call me from my silent bed?
Every evening, never ceasing,
I must hasten to be fed.
Caution drives me to another
Lest your earthly clock I stop;
Drain the cup and crush the bottle
Savoring each velvet drop.
Nay! Stop beating quite so loudly!
Torturer! I'll not thus doom
Another victim to my sentence
Roaming in eternal gloom.

Quickly! Lest the madness take me,
Flee from me, I thee implore.
I will seek another's treasure,
Plundering its liquid store.
Do not seek me out in daylight;
Do not seek me out at night.
I will hunt another lover
For my thirst and my delight.

Someday we may meet at dusk,
Or, maybe we will meet at dawn;
But now to save you from my fate,
My love, I fear I must move on.