Lykeia
Aloft among the sweeping city streets, there so treasured is beauty,
Like Aphrodite from the foam, women seek to rise to a place idealized.
Prayers are whispered on painted lips, that from their face they will reap,
For fortune is paid to beauty, and she who harnesses it well rises embraced.
The Muses gather in the square, dancing in the fountain sparking, flowing,
And there I pray that they join in me in song, to sing of fair Morpho, Aphrodite.
Dewed by night, in sunlight rising from her perfumed and flowered bath,
Morpho streams wet and damp, oceanic eyes smiling in great beauty.
Adorning upon her head, hair is coiled and trapped under ivory comb,
How those locks do glisten under the caress of light, as shining threads.
Gold is clasped and hung about her golden neck, a delicate pale arch,
And to her slender ankles and wrists does the bangles and twine rest.
Hail Morpho, most beautiful formed Aphrodite, rising in your western seat,
Prayers of adoration rise to you and flush your rosey apple cheek.
Women, many, fain to be as lovely as thee upon your cushion and crowned,
And the whispered wishes of parents pray for your blessings to their unborn.
For you face is the lamp of radiance and ecstacy, a fairness uncompared,
Men and women desire for their own, your elegant sloping jaw and lythe form.
And as time winds its path, and beauty fades into its weathered grasp,
Ambologera, never aging, as always stand far apart, and to you the many grieve,
That you delay the ravages of time upon their breast and tender face.
And you Antheia, ever immortal young and blooming, kindly touch the weathered,
Sweetly embrace those who impart prayers for beauty loved by men to be their own.
And there you hold before you the reflecting pool, a shimmering pearly mirror,
To our ears do these words greet, “beauty is before you, it is what you see.”
neosalexandria 