 | 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition |  |
164
VENUS AND ASCANIUS.—1865.
“At Venus Ascanio placidam per membra quietem
“Inrigat, et fotum gremio dea tollit in altos
“Idaliæ lucos, ubi mollis amaracus illum
“Floribus et dulci adspirans complectitur umbra.”
1 Æneid 691–4.
“Inrigat, et fotum gremio dea tollit in altos
“Idaliæ lucos, ubi mollis amaracus illum
“Floribus et dulci adspirans complectitur umbra.”
1 Æneid 691–4.
Pillowed upon the bosom of a goddess,
And lightly laid to sleep in rosy rest,
Gentle Ascanius held unconscious flight;
Through dewy clouds, that, leaning from above,
Kissed and embraced his sculptured brow and breast,
And stirred his golden flood of mantling hair.
The soft airs made a music as they glided,
Sweetened with balm and scenting frankincense,
The breath of gods.
And lightly laid to sleep in rosy rest,
Gentle Ascanius held unconscious flight;
Through dewy clouds, that, leaning from above,
Kissed and embraced his sculptured brow and breast,
And stirred his golden flood of mantling hair.
The soft airs made a music as they glided,
Sweetened with balm and scenting frankincense,
The breath of gods.
For Venus moved upon
His lissom limbs, bedewing them with mists
Of easy slumber; and, fondling him aloft
In arms divine, transported to her bower
To the tall woods Idalian and their shades,
Where the lazy lotus, breathing in his ear,
Lulling with odorous tears and charmèd dews,
Imprisoned him in leaves and wooing flowers—
The shades and flowers that bloomed and gloomed for him.
Blossoms of every hue around him smiled,
And languidly drew in the vital air,
Exhaled again in richer interest
Of perfume, which adown the swimming trees,
Wavered on swooning breezes, faint with love,
Laden with ministries of various use.
But from its skies the laughing blue stooped down
And made a roof of overshadowing light,
And looking down the tangled foliage seemed
Eyes of a goddess worshipping a god,
And meeting love with love, sweet interchange,
In some bright land where everything is love.
While birds, like wingéd sunbeams, went and came
With lightning presence through the lights and shadows,
So dimly separate in that holy place,
On hushed melodious pinions, momently,—
Expressing swiftest thought or fancy's flight,
When the rapt poet gives a loosened rein
To fancy's course and wild imaginings.
The murmuring life was as a music muffled,
And each soft sound stole like a guilty thing
Into the silence, sweet, ambrosial,
And folding all as in a magic cloak.
But Venus stood beside the flowery niche,
His lissom limbs, bedewing them with mists
Of easy slumber; and, fondling him aloft
In arms divine, transported to her bower
To the tall woods Idalian and their shades,
Where the lazy lotus, breathing in his ear,
Lulling with odorous tears and charmèd dews,
Imprisoned him in leaves and wooing flowers—
The shades and flowers that bloomed and gloomed for him.
Blossoms of every hue around him smiled,
And languidly drew in the vital air,
Exhaled again in richer interest
Of perfume, which adown the swimming trees,
Wavered on swooning breezes, faint with love,
Laden with ministries of various use.
But from its skies the laughing blue stooped down
And made a roof of overshadowing light,
And looking down the tangled foliage seemed
Eyes of a goddess worshipping a god,
And meeting love with love, sweet interchange,
In some bright land where everything is love.
While birds, like wingéd sunbeams, went and came
With lightning presence through the lights and shadows,
So dimly separate in that holy place,
On hushed melodious pinions, momently,—
Expressing swiftest thought or fancy's flight,
When the rapt poet gives a loosened rein
To fancy's course and wild imaginings.
The murmuring life was as a music muffled,
And each soft sound stole like a guilty thing
Into the silence, sweet, ambrosial,
And folding all as in a magic cloak.
165
Beautiful Venus, very sad and lonely,
With the warm light of prophecy in her eye,
And the fresh flush of promise on her lip,
And a wild glory round her ruffled head;
So still she seemed as carven out of silence,
So sad as if a part of frozen sadness,
So frail as woven from the threads of air,
Or in the marble sleep of breathing marble;
Dim as a mist, and yet more clear than morn,
Robed in the sunshine of her radiant hair.
She stood beside, as in a wondering dream,
(Like one that waits and watches for the dawn,
And sees even now its crimson finger pointing
To the immediate advent of the sun,
Who dallies with the darkness half in scorn)
And laid her hand upon his lovely forehead—
A golden sunbeam lighting on a fair
Round polished pebble—smoothing every crease
Or rippling shadow thrown athwart the light,
Drawing new inspiration from his dreaming,
Beauty from beauty; and whispering awful words,
She lifted a low voice and sang to him—
Sang of the budding future and its glory,
Of mighty empires—and her voice waxed stronger;
Of brooding love, and then—O then, she faltered;
Of melting tears, and in her eyes they trembled;
Of Roman matrons, and her white lips quivered—
She sang until the mighty passion moved
And shook her frame and seized the soul within,
Of the dream-future and its agonies,
The triumphs and victorious issuings;
Strong battles and the armies mustering
And meeting hand to hand, the shocks and griefs,
And the great Roman rising over all.
Thus then she darkly sang, while the boy slept.
The silver hours rolled radiantly away,
The pictured hours dropped in the lap of silence,
Slipping in music past the shores of Time;
And from below upstreamed an incense rich,
A rapturous dim chorus of far sounds,
Sweet tears, soft vows and prayers, and that appeal
Of wedded loves to the incarnate Love.
And, intermingling with the pleasant noise,
The tranquil notes within, the chorus rose,
In an eddying upward column of sick joy,
For ever into the deep and sublime Vast beyond.
Thus rolled the wheels of Time, and the boy slept
Set in a rosy sleep pure and profound.
| 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition | |