Charmides and Other Poems | Page 8

know is not to live at all,?And yet to know is to be held in death's most deadly thrall.
But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,?Who with Adonis all night long had lain?Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady,?On team of silver doves and gilded wain?Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar?From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,
And when low down she spied the hapless pair,?And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry,?Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air?As though it were a viol, hastily?She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,?And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous doom.
For as a gardener turning back his head?To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows?With careless scythe too near some flower bed,?And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,?And with the flower's loosened loneliness?Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness
Driving his little flock along the mead?Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide?Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede?And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,?Treads down their brimming golden chalices?Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;
Or as a schoolboy tired of his book?Flings himself down upon the reedy grass?And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,?And for a time forgets the hour glass,?Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,?And lets the hot sun kill them, even go these lovers lay.
And Venus cried, 'It is dread Artemis?Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,?Or else that mightier maid whose care it is?To guard her strong and stainless majesty?Upon the hill Athenian, - alas!?That they who loved so well unloved into Death's house should pass.'
So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl?In the great golden waggon tenderly?(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl?Just threaded with a blue vein's tapestry?Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast?Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)
And then each pigeon spread its milky van,?The bright car soared into the dawning sky,?And like a cloud the aerial caravan?Passed over the AEgean silently,?Till the faint air was troubled with the song?From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.
But when the doves had reached their wonted goal?Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips?Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul?Just shook the trembling petals of her lips?And passed into the void, and Venus knew?That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,
And bade her servants carve a cedar chest?With all the wonder of this history,?Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest?Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky?On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun?Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.
Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere?The morning bee had stung the daffodil?With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair?The waking stag had leapt across the rill?And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept?Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.
And when day brake, within that silver shrine?Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,?Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine?That she whose beauty made Death amorous?Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,?And let Desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford.
III
In melancholy moonless Acheron,?Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day?Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun?Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May?Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,?Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,
There by a dim and dark Lethaean well?Young Charmides was lying; wearily?He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,?And with its little rifled treasury?Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,?And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,
When as he gazed into the watery glass?And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned?His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass?Across the mirror, and a little hand?Stole into his, and warm lips timidly?Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.
Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,?And ever nigher still their faces came,?And nigher ever did their young mouths draw?Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,?And longing arms around her neck he cast,?And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,
And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,?And all her maidenhood was his to slay,?And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss?Their passion waxed and waned, - O why essay?To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!?Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essay?To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings?O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay?Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings?Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,?Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had