Wine is black, but red are the points of your breasts; black are the figures of heroes on the tall wine-jars, but your lips are red. Black, the frail sea-grass, but flushed faint red the curled shells. Red is your lifeblood, but black, deep black, the inexorable end of all. IV. After the Orgy It is morning; the revellers of last night have departed; the music of flutes and the voices of girl-nightingales are silent now. Half-filled wine-cups and empty jars stand by the couches; your torn golden chiton lies by a little pool of wine, your broken girdle dangles ironically from the Kyprian’s wrist. The flowers of your crown wither in my hand, shrivelled with the salt of my tears. Silence and withered flowers and the empty wine-cups: Ah, the last silence and the last flower-crowns on the white stele, the last wine-cup poured in the last farewell! V. The Offering Women have many gods: Astarte, daffodil-hair-curled; the apple-bearing Aphrodite; the wanton Aphrodite of Cyprus; Aphrodite Kottyto; the narrow-eyed Isis of Heliopolis; the great Mother of Ephesus. Some worship the Aphrodite of the people; some Artemis, and the violet-crowned queen of Athens; some homekeeping Hestia and some peacock-loving Hera. All the gods are beautiful and to be revered but none more than the white-fingered daughter of Mytilene, to whom I bear these daffodils and this bowl of milk as offering. VI. The Wine of Lesbos The wines of Chios and Samos are more esteemed than our heavy wine. But I mingle your name with the draught and the wine is keener than the gold-flowered-crowned drink of the Deathless. VII. April Yesterday we wandered out from the town, under the green silver-olive trees, gathering the flowers born from the blood of Adonis; Under a sunny wall we found a shepherd-lad piping beside a red-crested god of gardens; As he played the green-golden-scaled lizards and the many-spotted butterflies stayed beside him to listen: Eros had stolen the pipes of Marsyas. VIII. The Paktis Under your fingers the strings of the paktis tremble and cry out shrilly and vibrantly of love. Am I not more beautiful than an ivory paktis? Is not my voice as sweet? IX. The Charioteer Eros, charioteer of my soul, why do you torment and urge me onwards? For in her is absolute beauty and absolute knowledge and absolute— “Not Sophrosyne,” you say? Ah, but Sophrosyne is her captive, even as I. X. White Rose Here is a white rose. Take it—the sceptre of Desires and Kharites. XI. Her Voice Some are lovers of wisdom, some of beauty; of Eros and the Muses. But the Myrrhine’s voice is more lovely than all, even than yours, O soul of Plato. XII. Antre of the Nymphs