Page:Studies in Song - Swinburne (1880).djvu/20

 To softest springs of waters that suspire, With sounds too dim to shake the lowliest flower Breathless with hope and dauntless with desire: And bright before his face That Hour became a Grace, As in the light of their Athenian quire When the Hours before the sun And Graces were made one, Called by sweet Love down from the aerial gyre By one dear name of natural joy, To bear on her bright breast from heaven a heaven-born boy.

Ere light could kiss the little lids in sunder Or love could lift them for the sun to smite, His fiery birth-star as a sign of wonder Had risen, perplexing the presageful night