THE RITE OF VENUS
[She z': 7149164431/?}ששMe Via/in of the [ha/(mea' LUNA, who
play: her
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PISCES
manifests
dz‘siress.)
VENUS. Brother Libra, what is this song?
LIBRA
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music’s most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided;
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonising this earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age’s icy caves,
And Manhood’sdark and tossing waves,
And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulphs we flee
* Romance in D : Beethoven.
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