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Venus’ Looking-Glass

Christina Rossetti

I marked where lovely Venus and her court
  With song and dance and merry laugh went by;
  Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,
Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.
Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,
  Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,
  Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high
Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.
All this I saw in spring. Through summer heat
  I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.
  But when flushed autumn through the woodlands went
I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:
  Whom seeing, every harvester gave o’er
  His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems | Little, Brown, and Company, 1906
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