146
IDEAL PASSION
II
She is not cold, as mortal maidens are;
She is as vital as the universe,
Like those great powers antiquity did nurse
Upon the breast of being, names that star
The dusky dawn of passion, when the war
Of the created rose above the curse,
And throned for aye the better o'er the worse,—
Astarte's, Aphrodite's avatar,—
The procreant beauty of love marvellous,
Sister of Ceres and of Semele,
The mighty mothers; I have seen her thus,
Drawing Sicilian children to her knee,
While cypress and rose-laurel ominous
Burned in the noon beside the barren sea.
