Thy lips are like a scarlet thread, O prince’s daughter, thou art fair; Thy garments are perfumed with myrrh, With aloes drips thy braided hair.”
Dim fragrant gardens close me in, The city as a dream has gone, And from the South I feel the winds Blow soft from cedared Lebanon.
TO BOTTICELLI’S VENUS
IN the early dawning before the sun had risen The wind piped mournfully along the lonely sand, The sea lay desolate, sunless, desolate, There was no light upon the deep or light upon the land.
Before the sun had risen in the cold green twilight Came a Lady from the foam, a Lady wistful eyed, The crinkled waves beneath her feet ran eagerly before her, She drifted in from alien seas at the turn of the tide.
Light came into the world with her. I knelt before her beauty, Her pure and awful nakedness unaware of shame, Her slender fingers hiding the apple of her bosom, Her red gold hair unfilleted blown like a windy flame.
Softly blew the winds about her, softly fell the blossoms, But in her face was sorrow for the long years to be: The kiss beneath the olives, the anguish of betrayal, Her grief was for the wounds of Love, Our Lady of the Sea.