Frederic Manning

THOU art wine, Simaetha! When mine eyes drink thee

My blood flames, with the golden joy thou art

Bewildering me, until thy loveliness

Is veiled in its own light; nor know I then

Pure brows, and placid lips and eyes, and hair

With wind and sunlight glorious: but all

Are mingled in one flame. Oh thou in me

Art shrined, as none hath seen thee, as gods live

Whom Time shall not consume; nor rusts thy gold

Ever, so hath my soul enclosed thee round

With its divine air. Yea, thy very life,

Which flows through all the guises of thy moods,

Escaping as they die, and laughs and weeps

And builds again its beauty, have I set

Beyond the jeopards of rough time: yea, all

Thine ivory, imperilled loveliness,

And winey sanguine, where the cheek’s curve takes

Light as a bloom upon it, not to pass,

So there be God.
Thy praise hath made speech song:

And song from lip to lip flies, and black ships

Bear it from sea to sea; and on some quay

Where rise tall masts, and gay booths flank the ways

A tumbler sings it; and an alien air

Trembles with thee, while strange men wonder, dumb,

To see thee pass: thou being all my song.