All that all-love-deserving Paradise:
It was as blue as the most freezing skies,
Near the sea's hue from thence her goddess came:
On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame;
In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face,
From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase
Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend,
Spreading the ample scarf to either end,
Which figured the division of her mind,—
******This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere,
And cast itself at full breadth down her back."
This is more in costume, and more classical than the rival description at the commencement of the poem, where Marlow has arrayed his "Nun of Venus" in the stiff, rustling silks, and glistering brocades worn by the plump-shouldered yellow-haired Venetian dames of Tizian, or Paris Bordone. "Enough, however, has been already said, and it may appear to some more than was altogether seemly; but there are times when it is difficult for love to restrain every expression of its admiration[1]."
- ↑ See preface to Mr. ———'s singular, enthusiastic translation of "Sintram and his Companions," by Baron la Motte Fonqué, a sublime, deeply pondered effusion of genius, in the strict sense of the term.
