Poems by Oscar Wilde Part 5

As if Jove's gorgeous leman Danae Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss The trembling petals, or young Mercury Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis Had with one feather of his pinions Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns

Is hardly thicker than the gossamer, Or poor Arachne's silver tapestry,- Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me It seems to bring diviner memories Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,

Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where On the clear river's marge Narcissus lies, The tangle of the forest in his hair, The silence of the woodland in his eyes, Wooing that drifting imagery which is No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis

Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both, Fed by two fires and unsatisfied Through their excess, each pa.s.sion being loth For love's own sake to leave the other's side Yet killing love by staying; memories Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees,

Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf And called false Theseus back again nor knew That Dionysos on an amber pard Was close behind her; memories of what Maeonia's bard

With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy, Queen Helen lying in the ivory room, And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g with dainty hand his helmet's plume, And far away the moil, the shout, the groan, As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;

Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch, And all those tales imperishably stored In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich Than any gaudy galleon of Spain Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,

For well I know they are not dead at all, The ancient G.o.ds of Grecian poesy: They are asleep, and when they hear thee call Will wake and think 't is very Thessaly, This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard The horn of Atalanta faintly blown Across the c.u.mnor hills, and wandering Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets' spring,-

Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate That pleadest for the moon against the day!

If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate On that sweet questing, when Proserpina Forgot it was not Sicily and leant Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment,-

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!

If ever thou didst soothe with melody One of that little clan, that brotherhood Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany More than the perfect sun of Raphael And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.

Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young, Let elemental things take form again, And the old shapes of Beauty walk among The simple garths and open crofts, as when The son of Leto bare the willow rod, And the soft sheep and s.h.a.ggy goats followed the boyish G.o.d.

Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne, And over whimpering tigers shake the spear With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone, While at his side the wanton Ba.s.sarid Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid!

Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin, And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth, Upon whose icy chariot we could win Cithaeron in an hour ere the froth Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun Ceased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn

Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest, And warned the bat to close its filmy vans, Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans So softly that the little nested thrush Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rush

Down the green valley where the fallen dew Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store, Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew Trample the loosestrife down along the sh.o.r.e, And where their horned master sits in state Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!

Sing on! and soon with pa.s.sion-wearied face Through the cool leaves Apollo's lad will come, The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom, And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride, After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride.

Sing on! and I the dying boy will see Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell That overweighs the jacinth, and to me The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell, And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes, And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!

Cry out aloud on Itys! memory That foster-brother of remorse and pain Drops poison in mine ear,-O to be free, To burn one's old ships! and to launch again Into the white-plumed battle of the waves And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!

O for Medea with her poppied spell!

O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!

O for one leaf of that pale asphodel Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine, And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased From lily to lily on the level mead, Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed, Ere the black steeds had harried her away Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day.

O for one midnight and as paramour The Venus of the little Melian farm!

O that some antique statue for one hour Might wake to pa.s.sion, and that I could charm The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair, Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair!

Sing on! sing on! I would be drunk with life, Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth, I would forget the wearying wasted strife, The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth, The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer, The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!

Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe, Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal From joy its sweetest music, not as we Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal Our too untented wounds, and do but keep Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep.

Sing louder yet, why must I still behold The wan white face of that deserted Christ, Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold, Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed, And now in mute and marble misery Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me?

O Memory cast down thy wreathed sh.e.l.l!

Break thy hoa.r.s.e lute O sad Melpomene!

O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!

Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impa.s.sioned song!

Cease, cease, or if 't is anguish to be dumb Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air, Whose jocund carelessness doth more become This English woodland than thy keen despair, Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.

A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred, Endymion would have pa.s.sed across the mead Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.

A moment more, the waking dove had cooed, The silver daughter of the silver sea With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope Had thrust aside the branches of her oak To see the l.u.s.ty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.

A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis Had bared his barren beauty to the moon, And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile

Down leaning from his black and cl.u.s.tering hair, To shade those slumberous eyelids' caverned bliss, Or else on yonder gra.s.sy slope with bare High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and p.r.i.c.king spear.

Lie still, lie still, O pa.s.sionate heart, lie still!

O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!

O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill Come not with such despondent answering!

No more thou winged Marsyas complain, Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, And from the copse left desolate and bare Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart Brake in each separate note, a quality Which music sometimes has, being the Art Which is most nigh to tears and memory; Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?

Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, No woven web of b.l.o.o.d.y heraldries, But mossy dells for roving comrades made, Warm valleys where the tired student lies With half-shut book, and many a winding walk Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young Across the trampled towing-path, where late A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

The heron pa.s.ses homeward to the mere, The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, Gold world by world the silent stars appear, And like a blossom blown before the breeze A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, She knows Endymion is not far away; 'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed Which has no message of its own to play, So pipes another's bidding, it is I, Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill About the sombre woodland seems to cling Dying in music, else the air is still, So still that one might hear the bat's small wing Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell's br.i.m.m.i.n.g cell.

And far away across the lengthening wold, Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, Magdalen's tall tower tipped with tremulous gold Marks the long High Street of the little town, And warns me to return; I must not wait, Hark! 't is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.

WIND FLOWERS