IV
But one, in seeming petulance, oppressed
With heat has cast his brown young body free:
With arms behind his head and heaving breast
He lies and gazes at the cool bright sea;
So young Leander might when in the noon
He panted for the starry eyes of eve
And whispered o'er the waste of wandering waves,
"Hero, bid night come soon!"
Nor knew the nymphs were waiting to receive
And kiss his pale limbs in their cold sea-caves.
V
Now to their feet they leap and, with a shout,
Plunge through the glittering breakers without fear,
Breast the green-arching billows, and still out,
As if each dreamed the arms of Hero near;
Now like three sunbeams on an emerald crest,
Now like three foam-flakes melting out of sight,
They are blent with all the glory of all the sea;
One with the golden West;
Merged in a myriad waves of mystic light
As life is lost in immortality.
THE VENUS OF MILO
I
Backward she leans, as when the rose unblown
Slides white from its warm sheath some morn in May!
Under the sloping waist, aslant, her zone
Clings as it slips in tender disarray;
One knee, out-thrust a little, keeps it so
Lingering ere it fall; her lovely face
Gazes as o'er her own Eternity!
Those armless radiant shoulders, long ago
Perchance held arms out wide with yearning grace
For Adon by the blue Sicilian sea.
II