DOVES

On the edge of the wild-wood

Grey doves fluttering:

Grey doves of Astarte

To the woods at daybreak

Lazily uttering

Their murmured enchantment,

Old as man's childhood;

While she, pale divinity

Of hidden evil,

Silvers the regions chaste

Of cold sky, and broodeth

Over forests primeval

And all that thorny waste's

Wooded infinity.

‘ Lovely goddess of groves,’

Cried I,‘ what enchanted

Sinister recesses

Of these lone shades

May still be haunted

By thy demon caresses,

Thy unholy loves?’

But clear day quelleth

Her dominion lonely,

And the soft ring-dove,

Murmuring, telleth

That dark sin only

From man's lust springeth,

In man's heart dwelleth.