Classic Poem

WHEREIN HER RETURN REJOICES THE EARTH AND SOOTHES THE HEAVENS — THOUGH NOT HIS ANGUISH

But when her smile so sweetly flashing leaps
From ambush where it lay like light forsaken,
Stout Vulcan strives in vain to reawaken
That anvil where Sicilian lightning sleeps:
For from the grasp of Jove down to the deeps
Of boiling Etna are his thunders taken;
His sister's icy fortresses are shaken,
And in Apollo's warmth she melts, she weeps.
The red rose of the west breathes a bright wind
Which blows the ship at sea to silver beaches,
Wanders and wakes the flowers in upland reaches;
On every side the sullen stars are thinned
And scattered by the magic her face teaches —
But not my tears, my grief undisciplined.