The weft of the world was untorn
      That is woven of the day on the night,
      The hair of the hours was not white
    Nor the raiment of time overworn,
      When a wonder, a world’s delight,
    A perilous goddess was born,
      And the waves of the sea as she came
    Clove, and the foam at her feet,
        Fawning, rejoiced to bring forth
      A fleshly blossom, a flame
    Filling the heavens with heat
        To the cold white ends of the north.

    And in air the clamorous birds,
      And men upon earth that hear
    Sweet articulate words
        Sweetly divided apart,
      And in shallow and channel and mere
    The rapid and footless herds,
        Rejoiced, being foolish of heart.

    For all they said upon earth,
      She is fair, she is white like a dove,
        And the life of the world in her breath
    Breathes, and is born at her birth;
      For they knew thee for mother of love,
        And knew thee not mother of death.

    What hadst thou to do being born,
      Mother, when winds were at ease,
    As a flower of the springtime of corn,
      A flower of the foam of the seas? 
    For bitter thou wast from thy birth,
      Aphrodite, a mother of strife;
    For before thee some rest was on earth,
        A little respite from tears,
      A little pleasure of life;
    For life was not then as thou art,
        But as one that waxeth in years
      Sweet-spoken, a fruitful wife;
        Earth had no thorn, and desire
    No sting, neither death any dart;
      What hadst thou to do amongst these,
        Thou, clothed with a burning fire,
    Thou, girt with sorrow of heart,
      Thou, sprung of the seed of the seas
    As an ear from a seed of corn,
        As a brand plucked forth of a pyre,
    As a ray shed forth of the morn,
      For division of soul and disease,
    For a dart and a sting and a thorn? 
    What ailed thee then to be born?

    Was there not evil enough,
      Mother, and anguish on earth
      Born with a man at his birth,
    Wastes underfoot, and above
      Storm out of heaven, and dearth
    Shaken down from the shining thereof,
        Wrecks from afar overseas
      And peril of shallow and firth,
        And tears that spring and increase
      In the barren places of mirth,
    That thou, having wings as a dove,
      Being girt with desire for a girth,
        That thou must come after these,
    That thou must lay on him love?

    Thou shouldst not so have been born: 
      But death should have risen with thee,
        Mother, and visible fear,
          Grief, and the wringing of hands,
    And noise of many that mourn;
      The smitten bosom, the knee
        Bowed,