 | English Roses |  |
APHRODITE.
Ambrosial night hung over sea and land,The kissing moonbeams played about the sand
In warm white beauty, and each murmuring shell
Laughed as the silver fire upon it fell.
A little wind rose from the west, and flew
On wings of music that a season blew
In fragrant wafts, half-weary and half-shy,
As some spent babe sings its own lullaby.
And, lo, a shadow, that was light and lay
As soft as sleep when silence has its way,
Dropt with its cloak and left its magic mark;
And all the earth was all divinely dark;
The northern lights flashed in the northern sky,
And the great wheels of Time went dreamily.
But then, incarnate ecstasy, she came
In mist and movement and the flower of flame
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As if the world were but its tender toy;
Not out of fruitful soil or lilied lea,
But from the embraces of the earth and sea
Just where they met and married, glad she came
Naked and lovely without thought of shame;
Queen Aphrodite, wonderful and sweet,
As ripples leaped and washed her pure white feet.
She stood a moment dallying ere she stept
Forth on the land, that in the shadow crept
Or seemed to creep as conquered to her side
And laid beneath her all its power and pride.
Beautiful there she bowed to meet the bliss,
With mouth that gave and yet denied the kiss
Of sacrament, and leant upon the wind
Which touched one heavy tress that trailed behind
And caught its perfumed passion, while she stood
In the young wealth of conscious womanhood,
With pearls of foam and spray of emeralds fair
And snakes of gold that were her gleaming hair,
Laden with love that from her seemed to flow;
Her scornful lips were like a scarlet bow
And shot forth burning arrows, dew and breath
Of bloom and life that was delicious death.
The bushes knelt, the tall trees bowed the head,
The moonbeams made a carpet for her tread,
The green leaves rustled and stretched out their arms
And wove a dress for her uncovered charms,
The flints before her turned to precious gems
And stepping stones, the iron armèd stems
Forgot their thorns and nature, and the soil
Opened its treasures without stint or toil
An offering, and the world unbought by price
Became one altar of free sacrifice.
Her large glad eyes with sorrow seemed to fill,
Earth trembled at her footstep and stood still.
She felt the calling of the yearning years,
The joy that fed the fountain of our tears,
And forward bent to catch the distant strain
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While rapture wrestled with the glorious grief
And clasped and yet refused its rich relief.
But then a passion, like some mighty gale's
Wet with the memories of a thousand tales
Of surging seas, that took and shook her form,
Poured in her eyes the trouble of the storm
And clothed the heavy lids with gracious gloom
That heightened the round cheeks' rejoicing bloom,
And hung the long dark lashes with soft sights
Of diamond drops and opals' mystic lights,
And curled the ripe red lips with messages
Till they brimed over as bright chalices,
And left a haunting shadow deep and dim
On the bold curve of each voluptuous limb,
And threw around the palpitating frame
The poetry that has no mortal name.
She marked the picture of all space and time,
All worlds revolving to the same rapt chime
Of everlasting love; the pomp of Rome;
And Israel's faith, that walked the heaven as home;
The wit of Hellas, that revealed the heart
Of life and shaped it forth in shining art
Exceeding fair, and made the deeps disclose
The power of passion wedded to repose;
And the cold culture of the earth-bound West
Forged in the fire and on the iron breast
Of anvils hammered into soulless might
And brute perfection of a dead delight,
With fragrance yet in vision and at feast
And golden gleams of the enchanted East—
All set to one great conquering melody,
That moved the engines of eternity.
And everywhere she saw, that sovereign clue
To kingly action made it strong and true,
Love's one white moment, when the unveiled face
Looked first in awe on Nature's naked grace
And lived, and read the riddle of the years,
Knowledge of good and evil, orbed with fears;
And consciousness turned inward thrilled to find
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And laughed and trembled as a fluttered dove
To feel the final word of life was love.
This rolled life's river beneath bluer skies
On its broad path of fair humanities
And ministrations of heroic hands
That shook the world and moulded larger lands,
And gave sweet codes and uses to redress
Moralities of gaunt unloveliness,
And charters of high thought that drank of wells
Where beauty bathed and so renewed its spells.
Love was the breath of liberties and right,
And edged the sword that in the front of fight
Waved ever onward as it flashed and fell;
And laid warm limbs on beds of asphodel,
Where lips met lips and bosom bosom fired
And sobbed the secret that the soul desired.
Ah, beyond bloody creeds and cults she saw
A new religion and another law
Of gentleness that ruled the ruler's pride
And bade him walk a subject at her side,
With charities that rose on eagle wings
To heaven and thence returned as crowns for kings;
And earth the passing fashion of a glove,
To the great sceptred sweetnesses of love.
But then the trouble from her scarlet lips
And haunted eyes in passionate eclipse,
Dropt like a robe in the outbreaking shine
That showed her human daintiness divine,
And the one glory and the simple dress
Of her own pure and naked loveliness.
A rosy cloud, that hid no glowing part
And quivered with the beating of her heart,
Like innocence was coyly round her curled;
Heaven smiled above, and at her feet the world.
Thus forth she went to conquer every god,
And on all time to triumph as she trod;
While those white feet, that nothing could asperse,
Seemed as the pulsings of the universe.
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Through the dim night that crimsoned into day.
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