WILD GRAPE

Beneath the crawling shadow

Of a crumbling temple to gods long-forgotten,

The wild grape twines amid the fragments

Of shattered pillars prone upon the ground,

And its dark leaves hide from sight the broken sculptures

Of faun and youth and maiden,

That once stood in the temple pediment,

Young, naked, beautiful.

In wild freedom it climbs over the carved acanthus leaves of the crumbling columns,

And weaves a funeral wreath over their dead beauty.

The wild bees hum and buzz

Among the grape-flowers, heavy with honeyed perfume,

Under the drowsy noonday sun,

That spills its amber wine from a full goblet over the thirsting hillside.

Wanton and wild,

Like an unhappy lover

Clinging to the breast of his dead mistress,

The vine clings in voluptuous embrace

About the naked, pallid forms,

And mingles there with the eternal beauty

Of youth and age

And life and death.