Reaction


 * Reaction **

//Frederic Manning //(1882 - 1935)

What make you here, Aphrodite,

Lady of the Golden Cymbals,

Would you dance to awaken earth again

As of old on Ida?

Here are no threshing-floors....

Men call you delicate, a lover of softness:

Making thine images of ivory, stained with sanguine;

Strewing frail petals of roses before you;

Bringing you soft stuffs of sea-dyes,

Vermilion and saffron sandals,

Floating wimples of filmy webs, that veil you,

As clear water the glittering limbs

Of a nymph beloved of Pan.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">But you come among us,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">With sleepy eyelids, and a sleep-soft smile,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ere we have scraped our boots of the mud

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">That is half human....

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You come, tho’ we are killing the lice in our shirts,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">To fill our eyes with the wine of your vision,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Tho’ we are weary, and our hearts

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Emptied of the old jests.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Satia te sanguine

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You come among men; laughing

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">At the ramp of the strange beasts

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Roaring our songs in estaminets,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">With our hands hungry for life again.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You are come curious of our crude intoxications,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The savage pleasures and the gross lusts,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Being weary of the veiled lights, the whispers,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The languid colours, and rare spiced meats

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">That of old delighted you

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In Paphos.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">You would couch with us in the golden straw

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Of these great Gothic barns,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">With curious curved beams arching, as in shadowy aisles;

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While through the broken mud-wall

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Light rays,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Like the golden dust

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">On Danae poured.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And we turn from the harshness of swords,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hungering for you....

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And know not that your breasts,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Carven delicately of ivory and gold,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The lips, red and subtile,

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Are born of the bitter sea-foam and bright blood.