Charmides, and Other Poems. Wilde Oscar

      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 his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

      A little girl ran laughing from the farm,

         Not thinking of love’s secret mysteries,

      And when she saw the white and gleaming arm

         And all his manlihood, with longing eyes

      Whose