The Ravishment of Andromeda

The splendid winged horse, in noiseless flight,
From out his nostrils blowing clouds of fume,
Bears them, with quivering of his every plume,
Across the starry ether and blue night.

Now Afric plunges from their soaring height,
Then Asia ... desert ... Libanus in tomb
Of mist and fog ... and here, all white with spume,
The mystic sea that closed sweet Helle's sight.

Like two enormous cloaks the wind swells wide
The pinions which, as through the stars they glide,
Keep the clasped lovers nested from the cold;

While, as their throbbing shadows they descry,
From Aries to Aquarius they behold
Their Constellations dawning in the sky.