Camma

As one who poring on a Grecian urnScans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,And for their beauty's sake is loth to turnAnd face the obvious day, must I not yearnFor many a secret moon of indolent blissWhen in the midmost shrine of ArtemisI see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?

And yet—methinks I 'd rather see thee playThat serpent of old Nile, whose witcheryMade Emperors drunken,—come, great Egypt, shakeOur stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,I am grown sick of unreal passions, makeThe world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!