FullReads

Time was that a rain-cloud begat her, impregning the heave of the deep,
‘Twixt hooves of sea-horses a-scatter, stampeding the dolphins as sheep.
Lo! arose of that bridal Dione, rainbow’d and besprent of its dew!
Now learn ye to love who loved never–now ye who have loved, love anew!

She, she, with her gem-dripping finger enamels the wreath of the year;
She, she, when the maid-bud is nubile and swelling winds–whispers anear,
Disguising her voice in the Zephyr’s–“So secret the bed! And thou shy?”
She, she, thro’ the hush’d humid Midsummer night draws the dew from on high;
Dew bright with the tears of its origin, dew with its weight on the bough,

Gutta praeceps orbe parvo sustinet casus suos.
En, pudorem florulentae prodiderunt purpurae:
Umor ille quern serenis astra rorant noctibus
Mane virgineas papillas solvit umenti peplo.
Ipsa jussit mane ut udas virgines nubant rosae;
Fusa Paphies de cruore deque Amoris osculis
Deque gemmis deque flammis deque solis purpuris,
Cras ruborem qui latebat veste tectus ignea
Unico marita nodo non pudebit solvere.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.

Misdoubting and clinging and trembling–“Now, now must I fall? Is it now?”
Star-fleck’d on the stem of the brier as it gathers and falters and flows,
Lo! its trail runs a ripple of fire on the nipple it bids be a rose,
Yet englobes it diaphanous, veil upon veil in a tiffany drawn
To bedrape the small virginal breasts yet unripe for the spousal of dawn;
Till the vein’d very vermeil of Venus, till Cupid’s incarnadine kiss,
Till the ray of the ruby, the sunrise, ensanguine the bath of her bliss;
Till the wimple her bosom uncover, a tissue of fire to the view, 25
And the zone o’er the wrists of the lover slip down as they reach to undo.
Now learn ye to love who loved never–now ye who have loved, love anew!

Ipsa nymphas diva luco jussit ire myrteo:
It puer comes puellis. Nee tamen credi potest
Esse Amorem feriatum, si sagittas vexerit.
Ite, nymphae, posuit arma, feriatus est Amor;
Jussus est inermis ire, nudus ire jussus est,
Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne Iaederet;
Sed tamen nymphse cavete, quod Cupido pulcher est;
Est in armis totus idem quando nudus est Amor!

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit eras amet.

Conpari Venus pudore mittit ad te virgines:

“Go, maidens,” Our Lady commands, “while the myrtle is green in the groves,
Take the Boy to your escort.” “But ah!” cry the maidens, “what trust is in Love’s
Keeping holiday too, while he weareth his archery, tools of his trade?”
“Go! he lays them aside, an apprentice released; ye may wend unafraid.
See, I bid him disarm, he disarms; mother-naked I bid him to go,
And he goes mother-naked. What flame can he shoot without arrow or bow?”
Yet beware ye of Cupid, ye maidens! Beware most of all when he charms
As a child: for the more he runs naked, the more he’s a strong man-at-arms.

Now learn ye to love who loved never–now ye who have loved, love anew!
“Lady Dian”–Behold how demurely the damsels approach her and sue–

Una res est quam rogamus: cede, virgo Delia,
Ut nemus sit incruentum de ferinis stragibus.
Ipsa vellet ut venires, si deceret virginem:
Jam tribus choros videres feriatos noctibus
Congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos,
Floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas:
Nee Ceres nee Bacchus absunt, nee poetarum Deus;
De tenente tota nox est pervigilia canticis:
Regnet in silvis Dione; tu recede, Delia.
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.

Hear Venus her only petition! Dear maiden of Delos, depart!
Let the forest be bloodless to-day, unmolested the roe and the hart!
Holy huntress, thyself she would bid be her guest, could thy chastity stoop
To approve of our revels, our dances–three nights that we weave in a troop
Arm-in-arm thro’ thy sanctu’ries whirling, till faint and dispersed in the grove
We lie with thy lilies for chaplets, thy myrtles for arbours of love:
And Apollo, with Ceres and Bacchus to chorus–song, harvest, and wine–
Hymns thee dispossess’d, “‘Tis Dione who reigns! Let Diana resign!”
O, the wonderful nights of Dione! dark bough, with her star shining thro’!
Now learn ye to love who loved never–now ye who have loved, love anew!