Charmides

. HE was a Grecian lad, who coming home

    With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily

  Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam

    Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,

  And holding wave and wind in boy's despite

  Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night

  Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear

    Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,

  And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,

    And bade the pilot head her lustily                              

  Against the nor'west gale, and all day long

  Held on his way, and marked the rowers' time with measured song,

  And when the faint Corinthian hills were red

    Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay,

  And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,

    And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,

  And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold

  Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

  And a rich robe stained with the fishes' juice

    Which of some swarthy trader he had bought                      

  Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,

    And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,

  And by the questioning merchants made his way

  Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day

  Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,

    Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet

  Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd

    Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat

  Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring

  The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd fling    

  The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang

    His studded crook against the temple wall

  To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang

    Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall;

  And then the clear-voiced maidens 'gan to sing,

  And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering,

  A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,

    A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery

  Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb

    Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee                    

  Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil

  Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked

        spoil

  Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid

    To please Athena, and the dappled hide

  Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade

    Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried,

  And from the pillared precinct one by one

  Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had

        done.

  And the old priest put out the waning fires

    Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed                    

  For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres

    Came fainter on the wind, as down the road

  In joyous dance these country folk did pass,

  And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.

  Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,

    And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,

  And the rose-petals falling from the wreath

    As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,

  And seemed to be in some entrancèd swoon

  Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon        

  Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,

    When from his nook upleapt the venturous lad,

  And flinging wide the cedar-carven door

    Beheld an awful image saffron-clad

  And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared

  From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and ruin flared

  Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled

    The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled,

  And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,

    And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold                    

  In passion impotent, while with blind gaze

  The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

  The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp

    Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast

  The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp

    Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast

  Divide the folded curtains of the night,

  And knelt upon the little poop, and prayed in holy fright.

  And guilty lovers in their venery

    Forgat a little while their stolen sweets,                      

  Deeming they heard dread Dian's bitter cry;

    And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats

  Ran to their shields in haste precipitate,

  Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet.

  For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,

    And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear,

  And the air quaked with dissonant alarums

    Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,

  And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed,

  And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cavalcade.        

  Ready for death with parted lips he stood,

    And well content at such a price to see

  That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,

    The marvel of that pitiless chastity,

  Ah! well content indeed, for never wight

  Since Troy's young shepherd prince had seen so wonderful a sight.

  Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air

    Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh,

  And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair,

    And from his limbs he threw the cloak away,                    

  For whom would not such love make desperate,

  And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands violate

  Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,

    And bared the breasts of polished ivory,

  Till from the waist the peplos falling down

    Left visible the secret mystery

  Which to no lover will Athena show,

  The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of snow.

  Those who have never known a lover's sin

    Let them not read my ditty, it will be                          

  To their dull ears so musicless and thin

    That they will have no joy of it, but ye

  To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,

  Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen yet a-while.

  A little space he let his greedy eyes

    Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight

  Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,

    And then his lips in hungering delight

  Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck

  He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion's will to check.  

  Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,

    For all night long he murmured honeyed word,

  And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed

    Her pale and argent body undisturbed,

  And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed

  His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

  It was as if Numidian javelins

    Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,

  And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins

    In exquisite pulsation, and the pain                            

  Was such sweet anguish that he never drew

  His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew.

  They who have never seen the daylight peer

    Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain,

  And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear

    And worshipped body risen, they for certain

  Will never know of what I try to sing,

  How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering.

  The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,

    The sign which shipmen say is ominous                          

  Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,

    And the low lightening east was tremulous

  With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,

  Ere from the silent sombre shrine this lover had withdrawn.

  Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast

    Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,

  And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,

    And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran

  Like a young fawn unto an olive wood

  Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood.            

  And sought a little stream, which well he knew,

    For oftentimes with boyish careless shout

  The green and crested grebe he would pursue,

    Or snare in woven net the silver trout,

  And down amid the startled reeds he lay

  Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the day.

  On the green bank he lay, and let one hand

    Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly,

  And soon the breath of morning came and fanned

    His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly                      

  The tangled curls from off his forehead, while

  He on the running water gazed with strange and secret smile.

  And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak

    With his long crook undid the wattled cotes,

  And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke

    Curled through the air across the ripening oats,

  And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed

  As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.

  And when the light-foot mower went afield

    Across the meadows laced with threaded dew,                    

  And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,

    And from its nest the waking corn-crake flew,

  Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream

  And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,

  Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,

    "It is young Hylas, that false runaway

  Who with a Naiad now would make his bed

    Forgetting Herakles," but others, "Nay,

  It is Narcissus, his own paramour,

  Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure."        

  And when they nearer came a third one cried,

    "It is young Dionysos who has hid

  His spear and fawnskin by the river side

    Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,

  And wise indeed were we away to fly

  They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy."

  So turned they back, and feared to look behind,

    And told the timid swain how they had seen

  Amid the reeds some woodland God reclined,

    And no man dared to cross the open green,                      

  And on that day no olive-tree was slain,

  Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain.

  Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail

    Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound

  Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail

    Hoping that he some comrade new had found,

  And gat no answer, and then half afraid

  Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

  A little girl ran laughing from the farm

    Not thinking of love's secret mysteries,                        

  And when she saw the white and gleaming arm

    And all his manlihood, with longing eyes

  Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity

  Watched him a-while, and then stole back sadly and wearily.

  Far off he heard the city's hum and noise,

    And now and then the shriller laughter where

  The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys

    Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,

  And now and then a little tinkling bell

  As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.        

  Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,

    The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,

  In sleek and oily coat the water-rat

    Breasting the little ripples manfully

  Made for the wild-duck's nest, from bough to bough

  Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the slough.

  On the faint wind floated the silky seeds,

    As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,

  The ousel-cock splashed circles in the reeds

    And flecked with silver whorls the forest's glass,              

  Which scarce had caught again its imagery

  Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragonfly.

  But little care had he for any thing

    Though up and down the beech the squirrel played,

  And from the copse the linnet 'gan to sing

    To her brown mate her sweetest serenade,

  Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen

  The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen.

  But when the herdsman called his straggling goats

    With whistling pipe across the rocky road,                      

  And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes

    Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode

  Of coming storm, and the belated crane

  Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

  Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,

    And from the gloomy forest went his way

  Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,

    And came at last unto a little quay,

  And called his mates a-board, and took his seat

  On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping  

        sheet,

  And steered across the bay, and when nine suns

    Passed down the long and laddered way of gold,

  And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons

    To the chaste stars their confessors, or told

  Their dearest secret to the downy moth

  That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth

  Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes

    And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked

  As though the lading of three argosies

    Were in the hold, and flapped its wings, and shrieked,          

  And darkness straightway stole across the deep,

  Sheathed was Orion's sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep,

  And the moon hid behind a tawny mask

    Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean's marge

  Rose the red plume, the huge and hornèd casque,

    The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!

  And clad in bright and burnished panoply

  Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!

  To the dull sailors' sight her loosened locks

    Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet                

  Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks,

    And marking how the rising waters beat

  Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried

  To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side.

  But he, the over-bold adulterer,

    A dear profaner of great mysteries,

  An ardent amorous idolater,

    When he beheld those grand relentless eyes

  Laughed loud for joy, and crying out "I come"

  Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam.      

  Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,

    One dancer left the circling galaxy,

  And back to Athens on her clattering car

    In all the pride of venged divinity

  Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,

  And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

  And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew

    With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,

  And the old pilot bade the trembling crew

    Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen                    

  Close to the stern a dim and giant form,

  And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

  And no man dared to speak of Charmides

    Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought,

  And when they reached the strait Symplegades

    They beached their galley on the shore, and sought

  The toll-gate of the city hastily,

  And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery.

                                 II.

  But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare

    The boy's drowned body back to Grecian land,                    

  And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair

    And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand,

  Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,

  And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

  And when he neared his old Athenian home,

    A mighty billow rose up suddenly

  Upon whose oily back the clotted foam

    Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,

  And clasping him unto its glassy breast,

  Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!  

  Now where Colonos leans unto the sea

    There lies a long and level stretch of lawn,

  The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee

    For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun

  Is not afraid, for never through the day

  Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

  But often from the thorny labyrinth

    And tangled branches of the circling wood

  The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth

    Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood                  

  Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,

  Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

  The Dyrads come and throw the leathern ball

    Along the reedy shore, and circumvent

  Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal

    For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment,

  And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,

  Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

  On this side and on that a rocky cave,

    Hung with the yellow-bell'd laburnum, stands,                  

  Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave

    Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,

  As though it feared to be too soon forgot

  By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

  So small, that the inconstant butterfly

    Could steal the hoarded honey from each flower

  Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy

    Its over-greedy love,—within an hour

  A sailor boy, were he but rude enow

  To land and pluck a garland for his galley's painted prow,        

  Would almost leave the little meadow bare,

    For it knows nothing of great pageantry,

  Only a few narcissi here and there

    Stand separate in sweet austerity,

  Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,

  And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimetars.

  Hither the billow brought him, and was glad

    Of such dear servitude, and where the land

  Was virgin of all waters laid the lad

    Upon the golden margent of the strand,                          

  And like a lingering lover oft returned

  To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

  Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,

    That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,

  Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost

    Had withered up those lilies white and red

  Which, while the boy would through the forest range,

  Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counterchange.

  And when at dawn the woodnymphs, hand-in-hand,

    Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied                      

  The boy's pale body stretched upon the sand,

    And feared Poseidon's treachery, and cried,

  And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade,

  Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

  Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be

    So dread a thing to feel a sea-god's arms

  Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny,

    And longed to listen to those subtle charms

  Insidious lovers weave when they would win

  Some fencèd fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin    

  To yield her treasure unto one so fair,

    And lay beside him, thirsty with love's drouth,

  Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,

    And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth

  Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid

  Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

  Returned to fresh assault, and all day long

    Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,

  And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,

    Then frowned to see how froward was the boy                    

  Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,

  Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine,

  Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,

    But said, "He will awake, I know him well,

  He will awake at evening when the sun

    Hangs his red shield on Corinth's citadel,

  This sleep is but a cruel treachery

  To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

  Deeper than ever falls the fisher's line

    Already a huge Triton blows his horn,                          

  And weaves a garland from the crystalline

    And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn

  The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,

  For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral-crownèd head,

  We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,

    And a blue wave will be our canopy,

  And at our feet the water-snakes will curl

    In all their amethystine panoply

  Of diamonded mail, and we will mark

  The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,    

  Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold

    Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep

  His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,

    And we will see the painted dolphins sleep

  Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks

  Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous flocks.

  And tremulous opal-hued anemones

    Will wave their purple fringes where we tread

  Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies

    Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread                

  The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,

  And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck."

  But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun

    With gaudy pennon flying passed away

  Into his brazen House, and one by one

    The little yellow stars began to stray

  Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed

  She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

  And cried, "Awake, already the pale moon

    Washes the trees with silver, and the wave                      

  Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,

    The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave

  The night-jar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,

  And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky

        grass.

  Nay, though thou art a God, be not so coy,

    For in yon stream there is a little reed

  That often whispers how a lovely boy

    Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,

  Who when his cruel pleasure he had done

  Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.      

  Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still

    With great Apollo's kisses, and the fir

  Whose clustering sisters fringe the sea-ward hill

    Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher

  Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen

  The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar's silvery sheen.

  Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,

    And every morn a young and ruddy swain

  Wooes me with apples and with locks of hair,

    And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain                        

  By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;

  But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

  With little crimson feet, which with its store

    Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad

  Had stolen from the lofty sycamore

    At day-break, when her amorous comrade had

  Flown off in search of berried juniper

  Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

  Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency

    So constant as this simple shepherd-boy                        

  For my poor lips, his joyous purity

    And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy

  A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;

  For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss,

  His argent forehead, like a rising moon

    Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,

  Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon

    Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse

  For Cytheræa, the first silky down

  Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and  

        brown:

  And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds

    Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,

  And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds

    Is in his homestead for the thievish fly

  To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead

  Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

  And yet I love him not, it was for thee

    I kept my love, I knew that thou would'st come

  To rid me of this pallid chastity;

    Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam                      

  Of all the wide Ægean, brightest star

  Of ocean's azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

  I knew that thou would'st come, for when at first

    The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of Spring

  Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst

    To myriad multitudinous blossoming

  Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons

  That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes' rapturous tunes

  Startled the squirrel from its granary,

    And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,                    

  Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy

    Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein

  Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,

  And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem's maidenhood.

  The trooping fawns at evening came and laid

    Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs

  And on my topmost branch the blackbird made

    A little nest of grasses for his spouse,

  And now and then a twittering wren would light

  On a thin twig which hardly bare the weigh of such delight.      

  I was the Attic shepherd's trysting place,

    Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,

  And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase

    The timorous girl, till tired out with play

  She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,

  And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful snare.

  Then come away unto my ambuscade

    Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy

  For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade

    Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify                            

  The dearest rites of love, there in the cool

  And green recesses of its farthest depth there is a pool,

  The ouzel's haunt, the wild bee's pasturage,

    For round its rim great creamy lilies float

  Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,

    Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat

  Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid

  To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place were made

  For lovers such as we, the Cyprian Queen,

    One arm around her boyish paramour,                            

  Strays often there at eve, and I have seen

    The moon strip off her misty vestiture

  For young Endymion's eyes, be not afraid,

  The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

  Nay if thou wil'st, back to the beating brine,

    Back to the boisterous billow let us go,

  And walk all day beneath the hyaline

    Huge vault of Neptune's watery portico,

  And watch the purple monsters of the deep

  Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.      

  For if my mistress find me lying here

    She will not ruth or gentle pity show,

  But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere

    Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,

  And draw the feathered notch against her breast,

  And loose the archèd cord, ay, even now upon the quest

  I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,

    Thou laggard in love's battle! once at least

  Let me drink deep of passion's wine, and slake

    My parchèd being with the nectarous feast                      

  Which even Gods affect! O come Love come,

  Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home."

  Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees

    Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air

  Grew conscious of a God, and the grey seas

    Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare

  Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,

  And like a flame a barbèd reed flew whizzing down the glade.

  And where the little flowers of her breast

    Just brake into their milky blossoming,                        

  This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,

    Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,

  And ploughed a bloody furrow with its dart,

  And dug a long red road, and cleft with wingèd death her heart.

  Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry

    On the boy's body fell the Dryad maid,

  Sobbing for incomplete virginity,

    And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,

  And all the pain of things unsatisfied,

  And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing    

        side.

  Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,

    And very pitiful to see her die

  Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known

    The joy of passion, that dread mystery

  Which not to know is not to live at all,

  And yet to know is to be held in death's most deadly thrall.

  But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,

    Who with Adonis all night long had lain

  Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady,

    On team of silver doves and gilded wane                        

  Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar

  From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

  And when low down she spied the hapless pair,

    And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry,

  Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air

    As though it were a viol, hastily

  She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,

  And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous

        doom.

  For as a gardener turning back his head

    To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows                    

  With careless scythe too near some flower bed,

    And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,

  And with the flower's loosened loveliness

  Strews the brown mould, or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

  Driving his little flock along the mead

    Treads down two daffodils which side by side

  Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede

    And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,

  Treads down their brimming golden chalices

  Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages,      

  Or as a schoolboy tired of his book

    Flings himself down upon the reedy grass

  And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,

    And for a time forgets the hour glass,

  Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,

  And lets the hot sun kill them, even so these lovers lay.

  And Venus cried, "It is dread Artemis

    Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,

  Or else that mightier may whose care it is

    To guard her strong and stainless majesty                      

  Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!

  That they who loved so well unloved into Death's house should pass.

  So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl

    In the great golden waggon tenderly,

  Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl

    Just threaded with a blue vein's tapestry

  Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast

  Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest.

  And then each pigeon spread its milky van,

    The bright car soared into the dawning sky,                    

  And like a cloud the aerial caravan

    Passed over the Ægean silently,

  Till the faint air was troubled with the song

  From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

  But when the doves had reached their wonted goal

    Where the wide stair of orbèd marble dips

  Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul

    Just shook the trembling petals of her lips

  And passed into the void, and Venus knew

  That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,          

  And bade her servants carve a cedar chest

    With all the wonder of this history,

  Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest

    Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky

  On the low hills of Paphos, and the faun

  Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

  Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere

    The morning bee had stung the daffodil

  With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair

    The waking stag had leapt across the rill                      

  And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept

  Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

  And when day brake, within that silver shrine

    Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,

  Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine

    That she whose beauty made Death amorous

  Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,

  And let Desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford.

                                 III.

  In melancholy moonless Acheron,

    Far from the goodly earth and joyous day,                      

  Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun

    Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May

  Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,

  Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

  There by a dim and dark Lethæan well

    Young Charmides was lying, wearily

  He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,

    And with its little rifled treasury

  Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,

  And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a      

        dream,

  When as he gazed into the watery glass

    And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned

  His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass

    Across the mirror, and a little hand

  Stole into his, and warm lips timidly

  Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.

  Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,

    And ever nigher still their faces came,

  And nigher ever did their young mouths draw

    Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,                    

  And longing arms around her neck he cast,

  And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,

  And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,

    And all her maidenhood was his to slay,

  And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss

    Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay

  To pipe again of love too venturous reed!

  Enough, enough that Erôs laughed upon that flowerless mead.

  Too venturous poesy O why essay

    To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings                        

  O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay

    Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings,

  Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,

  Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quill!

  Enough, enough that he whose life had been

    A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,

  Could in the loveless land of Hades glean

    One scorching harvest from those fields of flame

  Where passion walks with naked unshod feet

  And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet  

  In that wild throb when all existences

    Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy

  Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress

    Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone

  Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne

  Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.