Beneath the amber veil of waking day,
Where orient pearls bedew the velvet grass,
The Queen of Grace in emerald shadows lay,
To watch the phantom of her longing pass—
A youth whose brow, by ivory radiance kissed,
Dissolved the heavy shrouds of morning mist.
"O, stay thy course!" the frantic Goddess cried,
Her voice a lute-string tuned to silver grief;
"Thy hunter’s spear lay dormant at thy side,
And seek within my arms a soft relief.
For why shouldst thou pursue the tusky foe,
When Love’s own orchard waits for thee to know?"
But he, with marble heart and frozen eye,
Disdained the nectar of her ruby breath;
He preferred the forest’s savage, somber cry,
And flirted with the iron hand of death.
"I loathe the silken snare of thy embrace,
Give me the storm, the thicket, and the chase!"
As Phoebus climbed his steep and gilded stair,
The brier tore at Venus' frantic tread;
She sought her truant through the woodland lair,
To find the flower of her passion dead—
Where crimson life had stained the thirsting loam,
And left the Goddess to her hollow home.
Since then, let mortal love be laced with gall,
A fleeting joy eclipsed by sudden blight;
The sweetest fruit shall be the first to fall,
And golden noon give way to endless night.
For where the Rose of Beauty once was sown,
the thorn of sorrow shall be ever grown.
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