VIII
Buried in fragrance, the half-moon flashes,
Beautiful, clouded, from head to heel:
One white foot in the warm wave plashes,
Violets tremble and half reveal,
Half conceal, as they kiss, the slender
Slope and curve of her sleeping limbs:
Violets bury one half the splendour
Still, as thro' heaven, she swims.
IX
Cold as the white rose waking at daybreak
Lifts the light of her lovely face,
Poised on an arm she watches the spray break
Over the slim white ankle's grace,
Watches the wave that sleeplessly tosses
Kissing the pure foot's pink sea-shells,
Watches the long-leaved heaven-dark mosses
Drowning their star-bright bells.
X
Swift as the Spring where the South has brightened
Earth with bloom in one passionate night,
Swift as the violet heavens had lightened
Swift to perfection, blinding, white,
Dian arose: and Actæon saw her,
Only he since the world began!
Only in dreams could Endymion draw her
Down to the heart of man.
XI
Fair as the dawn upon Himalaya
Anger flashed from her cheek's pure rose,
Alpine peaks at the passage of Maia
Flushed not fair as her breasts' white snows.
Ah, fair form of the heaven's completeness,
Who shall sing thee or who shall say
Whence that "high perfection of sweetness,"
Perfect to save or slay?
XII
Perfect in beauty, beauty the portal
Here on earth to the world's deep shrine,
Beauty hidden in all things mortal,
Who shall mingle his eyes with thine? Thou, to whom Life and Death surrender
All earth's forms as to heaven's deep care,
Who shall pierce to thy naked splendour,
Bind his brows with thy hair?