Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/210

 But blood nor tears ye love not, you That my love leads my longing to, Fair as the world's old faith of flowers, O golden goddesses of ours! From what Idalian rose-pleasance Hath Aphrodite bidden glance The lovelier lightnings of your feet? From what sweet Paphian sward or seat Led you more sweet?

O white three sisters, three as one, With flowerlike arms for flowery bands Your linked limbs glitter like the sun, And time lies beaten at your hands. Time and wild years and wars and men Pass, and ye care not whence or when; With calm lips over sweet for scorn, Ye watch night pass, O children born Of the old-world morn.

Ah, in this strange and shrineless place, What doth a goddess, what a Grace, Where no Greek worships her shrined limbs With wreaths and Cytherean hymns? Where no lute makes luxurious The adoring airs in Amathus,