Roses above them like a cloud were shed,
    To reinforce them in the amorous chace;
  While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,
    A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.

  Above, around, young Loves on every side
    Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;
  And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,
    Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;
  One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied
    To pour them on the couch that lay below;
  Another, poised upon his pinions, through
  The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: 

  For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,
    The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;—­
  Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;
    Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,
  Breathless; and round his mother’s neck did fling
    His languid arms, and with his winnowing made
  Her heart burn:—­very glad and bright of face,
  But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.

These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting.  Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape.  Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it.  Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the vehemence of Giulio Romano’s pencil.  To the last class belong the two next extracts:—­

  STANZAS 104—­107.

  In the last square the great artificer
    Had wrought himself crowned with Love’s perfect palm;
  Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,
    Leaving all labour for her bosom’s calm: 
  Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,
    Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;
  Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly
    Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.

  Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,
    Goodly and white, at Love’s behest, and rears
  His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: 
    She turns toward the shore that disappears,
  With frightened gesture; and the wonderful
    Gold curls about her bosom and her ears
  Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;
  This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.

  With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,
    She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: 
  So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,
    In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;
  They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less
    For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: 
  Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss
  But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.