by Coleridge · Cluster: Greek Mythology · Lust Sexual Desire · Desire
Abstract
A classicizing erotic idyll set on a ‘Milesian’ island temple, in which a praying priestess and a moonlit sea-voyage end in sensual union, framed in Catullan metre.
Connections
Topoi: Locus Amoenus Motifs: Desire, Sea, Moon, Rose Themes & Concepts: Romantic Love Forms & Genres: Lyric Historical References: Greek Mythology, Classical Antiquity
Testo integrale / Full text
Hear, my belovéd, an old Milesian story! —
High, and embosom’d in congregated laurels,
Glimmer’d a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it. 5
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom’d temple. 10
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it 15
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.
? 1799.