Charmides and Other Poems | Page 4

at such a price to see
That
calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,
The marvel of that pitiless chastity,
Ah!
well content indeed, for never wight
Since Troy's young shepherd prince had seen so
wonderful a sight.
Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh,

And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair,
And from his limbs he throw the cloak
away;
For whom would not such love make desperate?
And nigher came, and touched
her throat, and with hands violate
Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,
And bared the breasts of polished ivory,
Till
from the waist the peplos falling down
Left visible the secret mystery
Which to no
lover will Athena show,
The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of
snow.
Those who have never known a lover's sin
Let them not read my ditty, it will be
To
their dull ears so musicless and thin
That they will have no joy of it, but ye
To whose
wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,
Ye who have learned who Eros is, - O
listen yet awhile.
A little space he let his greedy eyes
Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight
Half
swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,
And then his lips in hungering delight
Fed on
her lips, and round the towered neck
He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion's
will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,

And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body
undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating
heart upon her chill and icy breast.
It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,

And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In exquisite pulsation, and the pain

Was such sweet anguish that he never drew
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of
warning flew.
They who have never seen the daylight peer
Into a darkened room, and drawn the
curtain,
And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear
And worshipped body risen,
they for certain
Will never know of what I try to sing,
How long the last kiss was,
how fond and late his lingering.
The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,
The sign which shipmen say is ominous
Of
wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous

With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his
lover had withdrawn.
Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the
cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy
knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the
well-built city stood;
And sought a little stream, which well he knew,
For oftentimes with boyish careless
shout
The green and crested grebe he would pursue,
Or snare in woven net the silver
trout,
And down amid the startled reeds he lay
Panting in breathless sweet affright,
and waited for the day.
On the green bank he lay, and let one hand
Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly,
And
soon the breath of morning came and fanned
His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly

The tangled curls from off his forehead, while
He on the running water gazed with
strange and secret smile.
And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak
With his long crook undid the wattled
cotes,
And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke
Curled through the air across
the ripening oats,
And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed
As through the crisp
and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.
And when the light-foot mower went afield
Across the meadows laced with threaded
dew,
And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,
And from its nest the waking
corncrake flew,
Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much
that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
'It is young Hylas, that false runaway

Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,' but others, 'Nay,
It
is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can
allure.'
And when they nearer came a third one cried,
'It is young Dionysos who has hid
His
spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise
indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.'
So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had
seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
And no man dared to cross the
open green,
And on that day no olive-tree was slain,
Nor rushes cut, but all deserted
was the fair domain,
Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and
bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade
new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on