REACTION

What make you here, Aphrodite,

Lady of the Golden Cymbals,

Would you dance to awaken earth again

As of old on Ida?

Here are no threshing-floors....

Men call you delicate, a lover of softness:

Making thine images of ivory, stained with sanguine;

Strewing frail petals of roses before you;

Bringing you soft stuffs of sea-dyes,

Vermilion and saffron sandals,

Floating wimples of filmy webs, that veil you,

As clear water the glittering limbs

Of a nymph beloved of Pan.

But you come among us,

With sleepy eyelids, and a sleep-soft smile,

Ere we have scraped our boots of the mud

That is half human....

You come, tho’ we are killing the lice in our shirts,

To fill our eyes with the wine of your vision,

Tho’ we are weary, and our hearts

Emptied of the old jests.

Satia te sanguine

You come among men; laughing

At the ramp of the strange beasts

Roaring our songs in estaminets,

With our hands hungry for life again.

You are come curious of our crude intoxications,

The savage pleasures and the gross lusts,

Being weary of the veiled lights, the whispers,

The languid colours, and rare spiced meats

That of old delighted you

In Paphos.

You would couch with us in the golden straw

Of these great Gothic barns,

With curious curved beams arching, as in shadowy aisles;

While through the broken mud-wall

Light rays,

Like the golden dust

On Danae poured.

And we turn from the harshness of swords,

Hungering for you....

And know not that your breasts,

Carven delicately of ivory and gold,

The lips, red and subtile,

Are born of the bitter sea-foam and bright blood.