Beauteous in the foamy laughter
     Bubbling round her shrinking waist,
     Lo! from locks and lips and eyelids
     Rain the glittering pearl-drops chaste!

     And about the maiden rapture
     Still the ruddy ripples play’d,
     Ebbing round in startled circlets
     When her arms began to wade;

     Flowing in like tides attracted
     To the glowing crescent shine! 
     Clasping her ambrosial whiteness
     Like an Autumn-tinted vine!

     Sinking low with love’s emotion! 
     Levying with look and tone
     All love’s rosy arts to mimic
     Cytherea’s magic zone!

     Trembling up with adoration
     To the crimson daisy tip
     Budding from the snowy bosom —
     Fainter than the rose-red lip!

     Rising in a storm of wavelets,
     That for shelter, feigning fright,
     Prest to those twin-heaving havens,
     Harbour’d there beneath her light;

     Gleaming in a whirl of eddies
     Round her lucid throat and neck;
     Eddying in a gleam of dimples
     Up against her bloomy cheek;

     Bribing all the breezy water
     With rich warmth, the nymph to keep
     In a self-imprison’d plaisance,
     Tempting her from deep to deep.

     Till at last delirious passion
     Thrill’d the god to wild excess,
     And the fervour of a moment
     Made divinity confess;

     And he stood in all his glory! 
     But so radiant, being near,
     That her eyes were frozen on him
     In a fascinated fear!

     All with orient splendour shining,
     All with roseate birth aglow,
     Gleam’d the golden god before her,
     With his golden crescent bow.

     Soon the dazzled light subsided,
     And he seem’d a beauteous youth,
     Form’d to gain the maiden’s murmurs,
     And to pledge the vows of truth.

     Ah! that thus he had continued! 
     O, that such for her had been! 
     Graceful with all godlike beauty,
     But so humanly serene!

     Cheeks, and mouth, and mellow ringlets,
     Bounteous as the mid-day beam;
     Pleading looks and wistful tremour,
     Tender as a maiden’s dream!

     Palms that like a bird’s throbb’d bosom
     Palpitate with eagerness,
     Lips, the bridals of the roses,
     Dewy sweet from the caress!

     Lips and limbs, and eyes and ringlets,
     Swaying, praying to one prayer,
     Like a lyre, swept by a spirit,
     In the still, enraptur’d air.

     Like a lyre in some far valley,
     Uttering ravishments divine! 
     All its strings to viewless fingers
     Yearning, modulations fine!

     Yearning with melodious fervour! 
     Like a beauteous maiden flower,
     When the young beloved three paces
     Hovers from the bridal bower.