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Ave Atque Vale: 15

Algernon Charles Swinburne

And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,
    And stains with tears her changing bosom chill:
    That obscure Venus of the hollow hill,
That thing transformed which was the Cytherean,
    With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine
    Long since, and face no more called Erycine;
A ghost, a bitter and luxurious god.
    Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell
    Did she, a sad and second prey, compel
Into the footless places once more trod,
    And shadows hot from hell.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works | William Heinemann, 1924
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