Songs of Bilitis - Benjamin Adamah

PART III - EPIGRAMS IN THE ISLE OF CYPRUS
"Bind my head with narcissus, and let me taste the crooked flute. Anoint my limbs
with saffron ointment, wet my gullet with wine of Mytilene, and mate me with a
virgin who will love her nest."
HYMN TO ASTARTE
Mother inexhaustible and incorruptible, creatures, born the first, engendered by
thyself and by thyself conceived, issue of thyself alone and seeking joy within
thyself, Astarte!
Oh! perpetually fertilized, virgin and nurse of all that is, chaste and lascivious,
pure and revelling, ineffable, nocturnal, sweet, breather of fire, foam of the sea!
Thou who accordest grace in secret, thou who unitest, thou who lovest, thou who
seizest with furious desire the multiplied races of savage beasts and couplest the
sexes in the wood.
Oh, irresistible Astarte! hear me, take me, possess me, oh, Moon! and thirteen
times each year draw from my womb the sweet libation of my blood!
HYMN TO THE NIGHT
The midnight masses of the trees move no more than do the mountains. The stars
are crowded in a spreading sky. A breeze warm as a human breath caresses my
cheeks and eyes.
Oh! Night who gave birth to the Gods! how sweet thou art upon my lips! how
warm thou art in my hair! how thou enterest into me this evening, and I feel that
I am big with all thy spring!
The flowers which are going to bloom will take their birth from me. The wind
which breathes so softly is my breath. The wafted perfume is my own desire. All
the living stars are in my eyes.
Thy voice, is it the murmur of the sea, or is it the silence of the fields? Thy voice,
I do not understand it, but it dizzies me, and my tears bathe both my hands.
48