Charmides and Other Poems | Page 6

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?Some fenced 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 crowned 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 nightjar 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 seaward 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?Woos 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