Edward Carpenter (August 29, 1844 – June 28, 1929) was an English socialist poet, philosopher, anthologist, and early LGBT activist. A poet and writer, he was a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and a friend of Walt Whitman. Wikipedia
And so at last I saw Satan appear before me- magnificent, fully formed.
Feet first, with shining limbs, he glanced down from above among the bushes,
And stood there erect, dark-skinned, with nostrils dilated with passion;
(In the burning intolerable sunlight he stood, and I in the shade of the bushes);
Fierce and scathing the effluence of his eyes, and scornful of dreams and dreamers (he touched a rock hard by and it split with a sound like thunder);
Fierce the magnetic influence of his dusky flesh; his great foot, well-formed, was planted firm in the sand-with spreading toes;
‘Come out’ he said with a taunt, ‘Art thou afraid to meet me?’
And I answered not, but sprang upon him and smote him;
And he smote me a thousand times, and brashed and scorched and slew me as with hands of flame;
And I was glad, for my body lay there dead; and I sprang upon him again with another body;
And he turned upon me, and smote me a thousand times and slew that body;
And I was glad and sprang upon him again with another body-
And with another and another and again another;
And the bodies which I took on yielded before him and were like cinctures of flame upon me, but I flung them aside;
And the pains which I endured in one body were powers which I wielded in the next; and I grew in strength, till at last I stood before him complete, with a body like his own and equal in might-exultant in pride and joy.
Then he ceased, and said, “I love thee.”
And lo! his form changed, and he leaned backwards and drew me upon him,
And bore me up into the air, and floated me over the topmost trees and the ocean, and round the curve of the earth under the moon-
Till we stood again in Paradise.
