At my soul some Protean elf is;
You're Simaetha; I am Delphis.
You are Sappho and your Phaon,
I.—We love.—There lies a ray on
All the Dark Æolian seas
'Round the violet Lesbian leas.
On we drift. I love you. Nearer
Looms our island. Rosier, clearer,
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo
Shines—a pale and pillared fire....
Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre!—
While in Hellas still we seem,
Let us sing of that we dream.
8
Landing, he sings.
Night, night, 'tis night. The moon drifts low above us,
And all its gold is tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars, that love us,
The stars smile down and every star's a dream.
In odorous purple, where the falling warble
Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin lifts its sculptured marble
Friezed with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.
She sings.
Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,
And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain—
Love, love, my love, ah, bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the resonant main.
What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us
From mouths of wild aroma, each a flame?—
That breathe of love, of love we know that drew us,
That kissed our eyes, so we might see the same.