Prologue

Who shall strike the wax of mystery from those priceless amphora, and give to the unsophisticated nostrils of the average reader the ravishing bouquet of wine pressed in a garden in Mitylene, twenty-five centuries ago?—MAURICE THOMPSON. Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I, too, Full of the vision, Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; Saw the reluctant Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, Looking always, looking with necks reverted Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder Shone Mitylene. —SWINBURNE.