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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Rape of Aurora

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

The Rape of Aurora

By George Meredith (1828–1909)
 
(1851)

NEVER, O never,
  Since dewy sweet Flora
Was ravished by Zephyr,
  Was such a thing heard
    In the valleys so hollow!        5
  Till rosy Aurora,
Uprising as ever,
  Bright Phosphor to follow,
Pale Phoebe to sever,
  Was caught like a bird        10
    To the breast of Apollo!
 
Wildly she flutters,
  And flushes all over
With passionate mutters
  Of shame to the hush        15
    Of his amorous whispers:
  But O such a lover
Must win when he utters,
  Thro’ rosy red lispers,
The pains that discover        20
  The wishes that gush
    From the torches of Hesperus.
 
One finger just touching
  The Orient chamber,
Unflooded the gushing        25
  Of light that illumed
    All her lustrous unveiling.
  On clouds of glow amber,
Her limbs richly blushing,
  She lay sweetly wailing,        30
In odours that gloomed
  On the God as he bloomed
    O’er her loveliness paling.
 
Great Pan in his covert
  Beheld the rare glistening,        35
The cry of the love-hurt,
  The sigh and the kiss
    Of the latest close mingling:
  But love, thought he, listening,
Will not do a dove hurt        40
  I know,—and a tingling,
Latent with bliss,
  Prickt thro’ him, I wis,
    For the Nymph he was singling.