Watching you tonight in the lamplight in the warm intimacy of our room, I was seduced again by the way you undress, and the scent of your sweet perfume. Whilst you performed those essential nightly rites, so familiar from years of married life, I thought that alone of the world's delights, the vision of you, my dearest wife and lover preparing yourself to come to my bed, will never fail to inspire my senses. Only when artifice is removed, and beauty is unmasked to set on fire the flagging pulse, in that quickening of mortal flesh, love finds eternal Spring.