Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Herbert P. Horne b. 1864

Formosae Puellae

OH! had you eyes, but eyes that move

Within the light and realm of love,

Then would you, on the sudden, meet

A Helen walking down the street.

Here in this London ’mid the stir,

The traffic, and the burdened air,

Oh! could your eyes divine their home,

Then this were Greece, or that were Rome.

The state of Dian is not gone,

The dawn she fled is yet the dawn;

Her crystal flesh the years renew

Despite her bodice, skirt, and shoe.

Nor is she only to be seen

With Juno’s height, and Pallas’ sheen;

The knit, all-wondrously wrought, form

Of Cytherea, soft and warm,

Yet, like her jewelled Hesperus,

Puts forth its light, and shines on us;

Whene’er she sees, and would control,

Love, at the windows of the soul.