from Sapphics

by  Algernon C. Swinburne

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
 Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
       Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
         Stood and beheld me.

       Then to me so lying awake a vision
       Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,
       Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too,
         Full of the vision,

       Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
     Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
     Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
       Saw the reluctant

     Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her,
     Looking always, looking with necks reverted,
     Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder
       Shone Mitylene;