THE SONGS OF BILITIS by PIERRE LOUYS

XCV

The Sea of Cypris

Upon the highest promontory, I stretched myself out. The sea was black like a field of violets. The milky-way gushed out from the great divine breast.

A thousand Menades slept about me in the mangled flowers. The long grasses mingled with their hair. And then, behold, the sun was born from the waters of the east.

They were the same waters and the same shores that, one day, saw appear the white body of Aphrodite. . . . Suddenly, I hid my eyes in my hands.

For I saw, trembling upon the water, a thousand tiny lips of light: the pure sex or the smile of Cypris Philommeides.

XCIII

Hymn of the Night

The black masses of the trees are immovable as the mountains. The stars fill the immense sky. A warm breeze like a human breath caresses my eyes and my cheeks.

O Night, who givest birth to the Gods! how sweet thou art upon my lips! how warm thou art in my hair! how thou enterest into me. now, and how I feel myself pregnant with all thy springtime!

The flowers that shall blossom shall all be born of me. The wind that respires is my breath. The perfume that passes is my desire. All the stars are in my eyes.

Thy voice is it the roar of the sea? Is it the silence of the plain? Thy voice; I comprehend it not, but it bends my head to my feet, and my tears lave my two hands.

one

from The Collected Works of Pierre Louys

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