For Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.
II
When Beauty from the sea,
With breasts of whiter rose
Than we
Behold on earth, arose.
Naked thro' Time returned
The Bliss of Heaven that day,
And burned
The dross of earth away.
Kings at her splendour quailed.
For all his triple steel
She haled
War at her chariot-wheel.
The rose and lily bowed
To cast, of odour sweet
A cloud
Before her wandering feet.
And from her radiant eyes
There shone on soul and sense
The skies'
Divine indifference.
O, mortal memory fond!
Slowly she passed away
Beyond
The curling clouds of day.
Return, we cry, return,
Till in the sadder light
We learn
That she was infinite.
The Dream that from the sea
With breasts of whiter rose
Than we
Behold on earth, arose.