Smile then, children, hand in hand <br />Bright and white as the summer snow, <br />Or that young King of the Grecian land, <br />Who smiled on Thetis, long ago, - <br />So long ago when, heart aflame, <br />The grave and gentle Peleus came <br />To the shore where the halcyon flies <br />To wed the maiden of his devotion, <br />The dancing lady with sky-blue eyes, <br />Thetis, the darling of Paradise, <br />The daughter of old Ocean. <br />Seas before her rise and break, <br />Dolphins tumble in her wake <br />Along the sapphire courses: <br />With Tritons ablow on their pearly shells <br />With a plash of waves and a clash of bells <br />From the glimmering house where her Father dwells <br />She drives his white-tail horses! <br />And the boys of heaven gowned and crowned, <br />Have Aphrodite to lead them round, <br />Aphrodite with hair unbound <br />Her silver breasts adorning. <br />Her long, her soft, her streaming hair, <br />Falls on a silver breast laid bare <br />By the stir and swing of the sealit air <br />And the movement of the morning.<br /><br />James Elroy Flecker<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epithalamion-5/
