Now the moon-white butterflies
Float across the liquid air,
Glad as in a dream;
And, across thy lover’s heart, 10
Visions of one scarlet mouth
With its maddening smile.
LXXXIV
Soft was the wind in the beech-trees;
Low was the surf on the shore;
In the blue dusk one planet
Like a great sea-pharos shone.
But nothing to me were the sea-sounds, 5
The wind and the yellow star,
When over my breast the banner
Of your golden hair was spread.
LXXXV
Have you heard the news of Sappho’s garden,
And the Golden Rose of Mitylene,
Which the bending brown-armed rowers lately
Brought from over sea, from lonely Pontus?
In a meadow by the river Halys, 5
Where some wood-god hath the world in keeping,
On a burning summer noon they found her,
Lovely as a Dryad, and more tender.
Her these eyes have seen, and not another
Shall behold, till time takes all things goodly, 10
So surpassing fair and fond and wondrous,—
Such a slave as, worth a great king’s ransom,
No man yet of all the sons of mortals
But would lose his soul for and regret not;
So hath Beauty compassed all her children 15
With the cords of longing and desire.