Jove in his high Olympian chamber lay Hugely supine, striving to charm away In sleep the long, intolerable noon. But heedless Morpheus still withheld his boon, And Jove upon his silk-pavilioned bed Tossed wrathful and awake. His fevered head Swarmed with a thousand fancies, which forecast Delights to be, or savoured pleasures past. Closing his eyes, he saw his eagle swift, Headlong as his own thunder, stoop and lift On pinions upward labouring the prize Of beauty ravished for the envious skies. He saw again that bright, adulterous pair, Trapped by the limping husband unaware, Fast in each other’s arms, and faster in the snare— And laughed remembering. Sometimes his thought Went wandering over the earth and sought Familiar places—temples by the sea, Cities and islands; here a sacred tree And there a cavern of shy nymphs. He rolled About his bed, in many a rich fold Crumpling his Babylonian coverlet, And yawned and stretched. The smell of his own sweat Brought back to mind his Libyan desert-fane Of mottled granite, with its endless train Of pilgrim camels, reeking towards the sky Ammonian incense to his hornèd deity; The while their masters worshipped, offering Huge teeth of ivory, while some would bring Their Ethiop wives—sleek wineskins of black silk, Jellied and huge from drinking asses’ milk Through years of tropical idleness, to pray For offspring (whom he ever sent away With prayers unanswered, lest their ebon race Might breed and blacken the earth’s comely face). Noon pressed on him a hotter, heavier weight. O Love in Idleness! how celibate He felt! Libido like a nemesis Scourged him with itching memories of bliss. The satin of imagined skin was sleek And supply warm against his lips and cheek, And deep within soft hair’s dishevelled dusk His eyelids fluttered; like a flowery musk The scent of a young body seemed to float Faintly about him, close and yet remote— For perfume and the essence of music dwell In other worlds among the asphodel Of unembodied life. Then all had flown; His dream had melted. In his bed, alone, Jove sweating lay and moaned, and longed in vain To still the pulses of his burning pain. In sheer despair at last he leapt from bed, Opened the window and thrust forth his head Into Olympian ether. One fierce frown Rifted the clouds, and he was looking down Into a gulf of azure calm; the rack Seethed round about, tempestuously black; But the god’s eye could hold its angry thunders back. There lay the world, down through the chasméd blue, Stretched out from edge to edge unto his view; And in the midst, bright as a summer’s day At breathless noon, the Mediterranean lay; And Ocean round the world’s dim fringes tossed His glaucous waves in mist and distance lost; And Pontus and the livid Caspian Sea Stirred in their nightmare sleep uneasily.