T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Rape of Aurora
By George Meredith (18281909)(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. | |