| George William (“A. E.”) Russell (1867–1935). Collected Poems by A.E. 1913. |
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| 83. Aphrodite |
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| NOT unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways: | |
| One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. | |
| With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights: | |
| The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights. | |
| But yet the close enfolding night seemed on the phantom verge of things, | 5 |
| For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings: | |
| For beauty called to beauty, and there thronged at the enchanter’s will | |
| The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still. | |
| And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout, | |
| And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out. | 10 |
| Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air? | |
| The burning doves fly from my heart, and melt within her bosom there. | |
| I know the sacrifice of old they offered to the mighty queen, | |
| And this adoring love has brought us back the beauty that has been. | |
| As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies, | 15 |
| So Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes: | |
| One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me: | |
| One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee! | |
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