We sailed; and many a morn of breathing balm, Purpureal, graced us in that season calm; And it was life to thee and me and love With the fair myths below, our God above, To sail in golden sunsets and emerge In golden morns upon a fretless surge. But ah, alas! the stars that dot the blue Shine not alway; the clouds must gather too. I knew not how it came, but in a while Myself I found cast on an arid isle Alone and barkless, soaked and wan with dread, The seas in wrath and thunder overhead, Deep down in coral caverns my pale love, No myths below, no God, it seemed, above.
Her heart is still and leaps no more With holy passion when the breeze, Her whilom playmate, as before, Comes with the language of the bees, Sad songs her mountain ashes sing And hidden fountains' whispering.
Her calm, white feet, erst fleet and fast As Daphne's when a Faun pursued, No more will dance like sunlight past The dim-green vistas of the wood, Where ev'ry quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set.
Hers were the limbs of living light Most beautiful and virginal, God-graceful and as godly white, And wild as beautiful withal, And hyacinthine curls that broke In color when a wind awoke.
The wild aromas weird that haunt Moist bloomy dells and solitudes About her presence seemed to pant, The happy life of all her moods; Ambrosial smiles and amorous eyes Whose luster would a god surprise.
Her grave be by a dripping rock, A mossy dingle of the hill, Remote from Bacchanals that mock, Wine-wild, the long, mad nights and still, Where no unhallowed Pan with lust May mar her melancholy dust.
Apollo never smote a lovelier strain, When swan-necked Hebe paused her thirsty bowl A-sparkle with its wealth of nectar-draughts To lend a list'ners ear and smile on him, As that the Tritons blew on wreathed horns When Aphrodite, the cold ocean-foam Bursting its bubbles, from the hissing snow Whirled her nude form on Hyperion's gaze, Naked and fresh as Indian Ocean shell Dashed landward from its bed of sucking sponge And branching corals by the changed monsoon. Wind-rocked she swung her white feet on the sea, And music raved down the slant western winds; With swollen jowls the Tritons puffed the conch, Where, breasting with cold bosoms the green waves, That laughed in ripples at Love's misty feet, Oceanids with dimple-dented palms Smote sidewise the pale bubbles of the foam, Which wove a silver iris 'round her form. Where dolphins tumbling stained the garish arch Nerëides sang, braiding their wet locks, Or flung them streaming on the broken foam, Till evetide showed her loveliest of stars-- Lost passion-flower of the sinking sun-- In the cool sheen of shadowy waters deep, That moaned wild sea-songs at the Sirens' caves; Then in a hollow pearl, o'er moon-white waves, The creatures of the ocean danced their queen, Till Cytherea like a rosy mist Beneath the star rose blushing from the deep. On the pearled sands of a moon-glassing sea Beneath the moon, narcissus-like, they met, She naked as a star and crowned with stars, Child of the airy foam and queen of love.