Sandro Botticelli
The National Gallery
SHE is a fate, although
She lies upon the grass,
While satyrs shout Ho, ho !
At what she brings to pass ;
And nature is as free
Before her strange, young face
As if it knew that she
Were in her sovereign place,
With shading trees above.
The little powers of earth on woolly hips
Are gay as children round a nurse they love ;
Nor do they watch her lips.
A cushion, crimson-rose,
Beneath her elbow heaves ;
Her head, erect in pose
Against the laurel-leaves,
Is looped with citron hair
That cunning plaits adorn.
Beside her instep bare
And dress of crimpled lawn
Fine blades of herbage rise ;
The level field that circles her retreat
Is one grey-lighted green the early sky's
Fresh blue inclines to meet.
Her swathing robe is bound
With gold that is not new :
She rears from off the ground
As if her body grew
Triumphant as a stem
That hath received the rains,
Hath softly sunk with them,
And in an hour regains
Its height and settledness.
Yet are her eyes alert ; they search and weigh
The god, supine, who fell from her caress
When love had had its sway.
He lies in perfect death
Of sleep that has no spasm ;
It seems his very breath
Is lifted from a chasm,
So sunk he lies. His hair
In russet heaps is spread ;
Thus couches in its lair
A creature that is dead :
But, see, his nostrils scent
New joy and tighten palpitating nerves,
Although his naked limbs, their fury spent,
Are fallen in wearied curves.
Athwart his figure twist
Some wreathy folds of white,
Crossed by the languid wrist
And loose palm of his right,
Wan hand ; the other drops
Its fingers down beside
The coat of mail that props
His shoulder ; crimson-dyed,
His cloak winds under him ;
One leg is stretched, one raised in arching lines :
Thus, opposite the queen, his body slim
And muscular reclines.
An impish satyr: blows
The mottled conch in vain
Beside his ear that knows
No whine of the sea-strain ;
Another tugs his spear,
One hides within his casque
Soft horns and jaunty leer ;
While one presumes to bask
Within his breastplate void
And rolls its tongue in open-hearted zest ;
Above the sleeper, their dim wings annoyed,
The wasps have made a nest.
O tragic forms, the man,
The woman — he asleep,
She lone and sadder than
The dawn, too wise to weep
Illusion that to her
Is empire, to the earth
Necessity and stir
Of sweet, predestined mirth !
Ironical she sees,
Without regret, the work her kiss has done
And lives a cold enchantress doomed to please
Her victims one by one.
