The Birth of Venus

Frills of brimming wavelets lap
Round a shell that is a boat;
Roses fly like birds and float
Down the crisp air; garments flap:
Midmost of the breeze, with locks
In possession of the wind,
Coiling hair in loosened shocks.
Sways a girl who seeks to bind
New-born beauty with a tress
Gold about her nakedness.

And her chilled, wan body sweet
Greets the ruffled cloak of rose,
Daisy-stitched, that Flora throws
Toward her ere she set her feet
On the green verge of the world:
Flora, with the corn-flower dressed,
Round her neck a rose-spray curled
Flowerless, wild-rose at her breast,
To her goddess hastes to bring
The wide chiton of the spring.

While from ocean, breathing hard,
With sole pressure toward the bay, —
Olive raiment, pinions grey
By clipt rose-stems thinly starred,
Zephyrus and Boreas pass,
One in wonder, one desire:
And the cool sea's dawnlit mass
Boreas' foot has lifted higher,
As he blows the shell to land,
Where the reed invades the sand.

She who treads the rocking shell —
Tearful shadow in her eyes
Of reluctant sympathies.
On her mouth a pause, a spell,
Candour far too lone to speak
And no knowledge on her brows;
Virgin stranger, come to seek
Covert of strong orange-boughs
By the sea-wind scarcely moved, —
She is Love that hath not loved.