T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Rape of Aurora
By George Meredith (1828–1909)(1851) NEVER, O never, | |
| Since dewy sweet Flora | |
| Was ravished by Zephyr, | |
| Was such a thing heard | |
| In the valleys so hollow! | 5 |
| Till rosy Aurora, | |
| Uprising as ever, | |
| Bright Phosphor to follow, | |
| Pale Phoebe to sever, | |
| Was caught like a bird | 10 |
| To the breast of Apollo! | |
| Wildly she flutters, | |
| And flushes all over | |
| With passionate mutters | |
| Of shame to the hush | 15 |
| Of his amorous whispers: | |
| But O such a lover | |
| Must win when he utters, | |
| Thro’ rosy red lispers, | |
| The pains that discover | 20 |
| The wishes that gush | |
| From the torches of Hesperus. | |
| One finger just touching | |
| The Orient chamber, | |
| Unflooded the gushing | 25 |
| Of light that illumed | |
| All her lustrous unveiling. | |
| On clouds of glow amber, | |
| Her limbs richly blushing, | |
| She lay sweetly wailing, | 30 |
| In odours that gloomed | |
| On the God as he bloomed | |
| O’er her loveliness paling. | |
| Great Pan in his covert | |
| Beheld the rare glistening, | 35 |
| The cry of the love-hurt, | |
| The sigh and the kiss | |
| Of the latest close mingling: | |
| But love, thought he, listening, | |
| Will not do a dove hurt | 40 |
| I know,—and a tingling, | |
| Latent with bliss, | |
| Prickt thro’ him, I wis, | |
| For the Nymph he was singling. | |