All that the heart hath, loving, not knowing
Whether the best is to die or to live,
Coming or going.

We shall be taken, but thou shalt live on,
Swallowed in sea-drifts that never affright thee;
Smiling, thou'lt lift up thy sweet hands alone,
Ah, Aphrodite!

Over thy face is a veil of white sea-mist,
Only thine eyes shine like stars; bless or blight me,
I will hold close to the leash at thy wrist,
O Aphrodite!

Rosy and proud are the skies of the East,
Love-dowered moons to enswathe thee, delight thee:
Thy days and our days--are thine then the least,
O Aphrodite?

Thou in the East and I here in the West,
Under our newer skies purple and pleasant:
Who shall decide which is better, attest,
Saga or peasant?

Thou with Serapis, Osiris, and Isis,
I with Jehovah, in vapours and shadows;
Thou with the gods' joy-enhancing devices,
Sweet-smelling meadows.

What is there given us?--Food and some raiment,
Toiling to reach to a Patmian haven,
Giving up all for uncertain repayment,
Feeding the raven.

Striving to peer through the infinite azure,
Alternate turning to earthward and falling,
Measuring life with Damastian measure,
Finite, appalling.

What does it matter! They passed who with Homer
Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols:
Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer,
It and their idols?

Who knows, ah, who knows! Here in this garden,
Heliotrope, hyacinth, soft suns to light me,
Leaning out, peering, thou, thou art my warden--
Thou, Aphrodite!

Up from the future of all things there come,
Marching abreast in their stately endeavour,
Races unborn, to the beat of the drum,
Of the Forever.

Resting not, beating down all the old traces,
Falls the light step of the new-coming nations,
Burning on altars of our loved graces,