Charmides, and Other Poems. Wilde Oscar

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-belled 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 money 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 scimitars.

      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 counter-change.

      And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, 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