So I did sit and eat

The best poem about sex I know - the most complete representation of the movements and moments of love and guilt, desire and shame, acceptance and devotion - is LOVE (III) by George Herbert:

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

The poem is not just about sex, any more than sex is just about sex. It is about the eucharist also, for example. But every time I sit down and taste D's meat, my head between her legs, my lips and tongue in service of her pleasure, this poem - I have known it since adolescence - hovers at the edge of attention. Another illustration, if one were needed, of the permeability of the membrane that separates religious from sexual devotion.

The poem is well-known and well-loved, and yet rarely read as referring to sex. Are most readers obtuse, or merely prudes?