Classic Poem

Come on your sky-blue wings, ye Paphian doves!
And o'er me drop the pure Idalian dews,
Come, fan the air with silken pinions,
Pluck with tender bill the roses,
While they open in the thickets,
Heavy with the tears of morning:
Bear them on the faltering breezes,
As they waken with Aurora,
Lightly brushing o'er the meadow,
Kissing, as they pass, the lilies;
Sighing through the silent forest,
Waking from their nightly slumbers
All its murmuring tones and echoes;
Floating o'er the sleeping ocean,
When without a wave or billow,
Like a green and golden mirror,
In the morning light it glows;
Bear these nectar-breathing blossoms,
Hovering round on rustling pinions,
Drop them on my mossy pillow,
Till a heap of crimson sweetness
Buries in its down my head.
O come, ye Paphian doves! from Cyprus come;
Close o'er the smiling queen of love and joy
Your wavy pinions, that a canopy
Of living sapphire, gold, and amethyst,
Emerald and hyacinth and orient pearl,
Cool her and shield her in its moving shade.
The Paphian Goddess, on her sea-born car
Of polished shell, sails lightly on the wind:
Before her chirp the bounding sparrows,
As they draw the lovely burden
With a trace of gauzy film:
She nearer comes and sends before
Her harbinger, the breath of roses,
Sweeter than the spicy gales
That blow from Araby, the blest;
Where, resting on white coffee-beds,
Or groves of frankincense and myrrh,
They drink the airs of Paradise;
Sweeter than a languid zephyr,
From a flowering myrtle thicket,
Which, beside the briny billow,
Sucks the essences of love,
And by the secret arts of Nature,
To the most refined sweetness,
Floating in a cloud of ether,
Turns the salt and bitter wave.
Drop on my head those thrilling dews,
So oft in childhood's tender hours
You poured in kindling showers around.
But no, — my brow is cold, —
Passion's fire is spent, —
The dews no sooner touch my forehead,
Than they freeze to crystal drops,
And scornful bound away.