University of Virginia Library

A SKETCH AT ATHENS

Sing me a song, my beloved, sing it low,
When rose-crowned in some marble portico,
I watch the wondrous clouds that sun-down weaves,
Still as a green-eyed locust on the leaves.
The sea-ways are alive with tawny sails,
The day burns out in faded orange veils.
A horn of light just frays the corner gray
Where the cloud opens to receive the day.
Come to me, my beloved, sing it here;
The race of leaves is falling everywhere.
Here on the marble squares I spread my nest,
Our feasting couch shall face the ardent west.
Bring hither nard and vervein, skins of wine,
Fat icy gourds, pomegranates, ivy-twine.
The violet bud is sweetest in a wreath,
But mingle in some roses underneath,
To crown us twain; as gods in asphodel
Serene above the fretful moaning swell
Of time and change; where one dies, and one weds;
And that great tree of life its foliage sheds
In a perpetual Autumn. O my love,
Let us be glad a little, if above
The lords allow us interval of pain.
Begin, ye smooth white flute-girls your refrain;
Cease your cicala-chirping and begin;
Cease dabbling ivory fingers where a skin
Leaks out upon the marble in red rill;
Ye are petulant, begin then! And she will
Lead your refrain, my lovely of all loved;
She comes, as Heré once on Ida moved
To meet her lord. Her bountiful sweet hair
Out-curves the forehead fillet, rippling there,
Along each narrow temple's interspace,
Folding in golden shadow half the face.
Defer thy song, my dove, till I have kissed
Each of thine eyes of sea-blue amethyst.
The lyre is rested on her beating side.
The prelude music rises like a tide;
Half smiling thro' her choral ode she sighs
With hectic lips and regal languid eyes;
Then, as the music deepens her face glows,
Her shy luxuriant, indolent repose
Fades in the access of the lyric storm;
Her arms are rhythmic: her full-fruited form
Is broken in delicious shuddering bends
Till the last chord in sudden silence ends.
Then back she tosses her rich fleece of hair,
And readjusts the tunic fallen where
The bends of milky shoulder intervene,
By the half-hidden bosom of my queen.
Flushed in her blinding tresses disarrayed,
Half the throat shines and half remains in shade
In veils of lucid saffron dim she moves
And rises as the star whom evening loves,
The mellow herald of the unrisen moon,
The viceroy of the sun asleep too soon.
So clothed in robes of floating gold divine,
With lips in laughter fresher than the brine,
My love arises, ripe and clear and new,
Perfect in calm, in motion perfect too.
In gracious curves reclining sudden-wise,
She leans herself above me with great eyes;
And, winding round me, lithe to the sandal heel,
Tightens her pliant folds, a silver eel;
Sets at her chin her nestling face whereon
Glows the red echo of her music done,
Saying: “I made my song of love indeed,
But song to Love himself is merely weed,
As shadow is to light the love we sing
Is very wan when lips of lovers cling.
As dream to waking, as the imaged star
To Hesperus himself, my lyrics are.
Come let us love and prove it as I say,
The ripe hour runs, the golden sun grows gray.”
And as her fingers net behind my hair,
“My lips,” she whispers, “are as rosy-rare
As foam from Aphrodite, when she stood
Humid and white in Paphian ocean-wood.”
And I respond: “O dainty, in your kiss
The scent of many myrtle branches is,
With breeze of ocean, dew, and spices sweet.
Chill with the marble are your rosy feet,
That lean against me. Let me hold thee fast,
As scattered sheep the clouds are reeling past,
The stars are wheeling in the mellow deep,
So let the lute-girls sing us both asleep.”