Mundi et Cordis De Rebus Sempiternis et Temporariis: Carmina. Poems and Sonnets. By Thomas Wade |
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Mundi et Cordis | ||
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XXXIV. THE DREAM-DANCERS.
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No human beauty ever from the pageOf poet, or great painter's canvass, threw
Entrancement over sense; or in an age
Of living flesh and blood to fulness grew,
So beautiful and living as did come
One summer-night before me in a dream,
Pacing a dance of love-delirium
With measured motion—like a brimming stream
Which rolling in the sun we do behold,
Its broad unvarying ripples hung with gold!
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A Man and Woman, bare as Bacchanals,Clothed only in the robing light of pleasure,
And dancing to no music but the calls
Of sighs, which faintly with their feet kept measure;
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Like clustering rose-boughs when sweet airs are blowing,
Or pure etherial fires now interspangled
By winds, and now apart in glory glowing;
Their liquid eyes into each other burning,
Their kiss-curved lips still to each other turning:
3
And thus they floated round and round, as lightlyAs gold-wing'd creatures circle in the sun!
The Man still smiled rejoicing, and as brightly
As when their glorious dance was first begun;
But the ripe Woman with voluptuous feeling
Became oppress'd—a Hebe steep'd in wine
Out of Jove's cup!—and, in their midway reeling,
Sank on the bosom of her mate divine:
Then, both grew ether-pale as skies at dawn;
And o'er their forms a veil of light was drawn.
Mundi et Cordis | ||