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| GODDESS of dreams, mother of love and sorrow, | |
| Such sorrow as from love’s fair promise flows, | |
| Such love as from love’s martyrdoms doth borrow | |
| That conquering calm which only sorrow knows; | |
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| Venus, triumphant! so serene and tender, | 5 |
| In thy calm after-bloom of life and love, | |
| More fair than when of old thy sea-born splendor | |
| Surprised the senses of Olympian Jove: | |
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| Not these the lips that, kindling into kisses, | |
| Poured subtile heats through Adon’s languid frame, | 10 |
| Rained on his sullen lips their warm caresses, | |
| Thrilled to his heart and turned its frost to flame! | |
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| Thy soul transcending passion’s wild illusion, | |
| Its fantasy and fever and unrest, | |
| Broods tenderly in thought’s devout seclusion, | 15 |
| O’er some lost love-dream lingering in thy breast. | |
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| Thy face seems touched with pity for the anguish | |
| Of earth’s disconsolate and lonely hearts; | |
| For all the lorn and loveless lives that languish | |
| In solitary homes and sordid marts: | 20 |
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| With pity for the faithlessness and feigning, | |
| The vain repentance and the long regret, | |
| The perfumed lamps in lonely chambers waning, | |
| The untouched fruits on golden salvers set: | |
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| With pity for the patient watchers yearning | 25 |
| Through glimmering casements over midnight moors, | |
| Thrilled by the echo of far feet returning | |
| Through the blank darkness of the empty doors: | |
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| With sorrow for the coy, sweet buds that cherish | |
| In virgin pride love’s luxury of gloom, | 30 |
| And in their fair unfolded beauty perish, | |
| Fading like flowers that knew not how to bloom: | |
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| With sorrow for the over-blown pale roses | |
| That yield their fragrance to the wandering air; | |
| For all the penalties that life imposes | 35 |
| On passion’s dream, on love’s divine despair. | |
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