APHRODITE, BORN OF THE SEA FOAM

BIRTH OF APHRODITE
“Look, look why shine
Those floating bubbles with such light divine?
They break, and from their mist a lily form
Rises from out the wave, in beauty warm.
The wave is by the blue-veined feet scarce press’d
Her silky ringlets float about her breast,
Veiling its fairy loveliness, while her eye
Is soft and deep as the heaven is high.
The Beautiful is born; sea and earth
May well revere the hour of that mysterious birth.”

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli, “The Birth of Venus,” 1483