Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/102

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THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE.
87

One infinite blossom of blossoms innumerable aflush through the gloom.
All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering; all over impends
An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and descends,
That exults and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence of heart
As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and hearkens apart.
As a beaker inverse at a feast on Olympus, exhausted of wine,
But inlaid as with rose from the lips of Dione that left it divine:
From the lips everliving of laughter and love everlasting, that leave
In the cleft of his heart who shall kiss them a snake to corrode it and cleave.