Charmides, and Other Poems. Wilde Oscar

      Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise,

         And now and then the shriller laughter where

      The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys

         Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,

      And now and then a little tinkling bell

      As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

      Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,

         The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,

      In sleek and oily coat the water-rat

         Breasting the little ripples manfully

      Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough

      Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the slough.

      On the faint wind floated the silky seeds

         As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,

      The ouzel-cock splashed circles in the reeds

         And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s glass,

      Which scarce had caught again its imagery

      Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly.

      But little care had he for any thing

         Though up and down the beech the squirrel played,

      And from the copse the linnet ’gan to sing

         To its brown mate its sweetest serenade;

      Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen

      The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen.

      But when the herdsman called his straggling goats

         With whistling pipe across the rocky road,

      And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes

         Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode

      Of coming storm, and the belated crane

      Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

      Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,

         And from the gloomy forest went his way

      Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,

         And came at last unto a little quay,

      And called his mates aboard, and took his seat

      On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping sheet,

      And steered across the bay, and when nine suns

         Passed down the long and laddered way of gold,

      And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons

         To the chaste stars their confessors, or told

      Their dearest secret to the downy moth

      That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth

      Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes

         And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked

      As though the lading of three argosies

         Were in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked,

      And darkness straightway stole across the deep,

      Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep,

      And the moon hid behind a tawny mask

         Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean’s marge

      Rose the red plume, the huge and hornèd casque,

         The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!

      And clad in bright and burnished panoply

      Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!

      To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks

         Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet

      Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks,

         And, marking how the rising waters beat

      Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried

      To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side

      But he, the overbold adulterer,

         A dear profaner of great mysteries,

      An ardent amorous idolater,

         When he beheld those grand relentless eyes

      Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’

      Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam.

      Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,

         One dancer left the circling galaxy,

      And back to Athens on her clattering car

         In all the pride of venged divinity

      Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,

      And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

      And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew

         With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,

      And the old pilot bade the trembling crew

         Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen

      Close to the stern a dim and giant form,

      And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

      And no man dared to speak of Charmides

         Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought,

      And when they reached the strait Symplegades

         They beached their galley on the shore, and sought

      The toll-gate of the city hastily,

      And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery.