• Swinburne dedicated
Poems and Ballads to fellow
Pre-Raphaelite,
Edward Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones' painting
Laus Veneris, first exhibited in 1878, shared the story of
Tannhäuser as its inspiration with Swinburne's poem of the same name. '', Louvre, Paris • The
Borghese Hermaphroditus at the
Louvre inspired Swinburne's poem "Hermaphroditus", subscribed "
Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863". • The
Isle of Wight, to the south of the British coast, was Swinburne's home throughout his childhood and later life; his love for the sea appears often in his poetry, where it is a metaphor for time, as in "Love at Sea", written in imitation of
Théophile Gautier, and "The Triumph of Time". • The first documented use of the word "lesbianism" to refer to
female homosexuality is in 1870, four years after Swinburne published this book, which includes the poem "Sapphics", where he refers to
Sappho of Lesbos and her lover
Anactoria as "Lesbians". Although use of the term lesbian in this way was present as early as 1732, "sapphic" or "tribade" were more commonly used until the late 19th century, when Swinburne was among the first to popularize the term lesbian. ==Second and Third Series==