Charmides and Other Poems | Page 7

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 daybreak, 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 Cytheraea, 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 AEgean, 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 weight 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 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 was 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 will'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 arched cord; aye, 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 parched 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 barbed 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 winged 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