Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

by Oscar Wilde

  Had stolen from the lofty sycamore

  At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had

  Flown off in search of berried juniper

  Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

  Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency

  So constant as this simple shepherd-boy

  For my poor lips, his joyous purity

  And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy

  A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;

  For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

  His argent forehead, like a rising moon

  Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,

  Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon

  Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse

  For Cytheraea, the first silky down

  Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and brown:

  And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds

  Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,

  And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds

  Is in his homestead for the thievish fly

  To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead

  Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

  And yet I love him not; it was for thee

  I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come

  To rid me of this pallid chastity;

  Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam

  Of all the wide Aegean, brightest star

  Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

  I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first

  The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of Spring

  Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst

  To myriad multitudinous blossoming

  Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons

  That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous tunes

  Startled the squirrel from its granary,

  And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,

  Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy

  Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein

  Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,

  And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

  The trooping fawns at evening came and laid

  Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,

  And on my topmost branch the blackbird made

  A little nest of grasses for his spouse,

  And now and then a twittering wren would light

  On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

  I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,

  Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,

  And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase

  The timorous girl, till tired out with play

  She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,

  And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful snare.

  Then come away into my ambuscade

  Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy

  For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade

  Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify

  The dearest rites of love, there in the cool;

  And green recesses of its farthest depth there is a pool,

  The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,

  For round its rim great creamy lilies float

  Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,

  Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat

  Steered by a dragon-fly, – be not afraid;

  To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

  For lovers such as we: the Cyprian Queen,

  One arm around her boyish paramour,

  Strays often there at eve, and I have seen

  The moon strip off her misty vestiture

  For young Endymion’s eyes, be not afraid;

  The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

  Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,

  Back to the boisterous billow let us go,

  And walk all day beneath the hyaline

  Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,

  And watch the purple monsters of the deep

  Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

  For if my mistress find me lying here

  She will not ruth or gentle pity show,

  But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere

  Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,

  And draw the feathered notch against her breast,

  And loose the arched cord, ay, even now upon the quest

  I hear her hurrying feet, – awake, awake,

  Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least

  Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake

  My parched being with the nectarous feast

  Which even Gods affect! O come, Love, come,

  Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

  Scare had she spoken when the shuddering trees

  Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air

  Grew conscious of a God, and the grey seas

  Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare

  Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,

  And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

  And where the little flowers of her breast

  Just brake into their milky blossoming,

  This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,

  Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,

  And ploughed a bloody furrow with its dart,

  And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

  Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry

  On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,

  Sobbing for incomplete virginity,

  And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,

  And all the pain of things unsatisfied,

  And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing side.

  Ah! Pitiful it was to hear her moan,

  And very pitful to see her die

  Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known

  The joy of passion, that dread mystery

  Which not to 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 loveliness

  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 side

  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 so 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.

  3

  In melancholy moonless Acheron,

  Far from 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 quill!

  Enough, enough that he whose life had been

  A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,

  Could in the loveless land of Hades glean

  One scorching harvest from those fields of flame

  Where passion walks with naked unshod feet

  And is not wounded – ah! Enough that once their lips could meet

  In that wild throb when all existences

  Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy

  Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress

  Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone

  Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne

  Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna’ loosed her zone.

  BALLADE DE MARGUERITE

  (Normande)

  I am weary of lying within the chase

  When the knights are meeting in market-place.

  Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town

  Lest the hooves of the war-horse tread thee down.

  But I would not go where the Squires ride,

  I would only walk by my Lady’s side.

  Alack! And alack! thou art overbold,

  A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.

  Will she love me the less that my Father is seen

  Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?

  Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,

  Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.

  Ah, if she is working the arras bright

  I might ravel the threads by the fire-light.

  Perchance she is hunting of the deer,

  How could you follow o’er hill and mere?

  Ah, if she is riding with the court,

  I might run beside her and wind the morte.

  Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,

  (On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)

  Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,

  I might swing the censer and ring the bell.

  Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,

  Thy father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.

  But who are these knights in bright array?

  Is it a pageant the rich folks play?

  ’Tis the King of England from over sea,

  Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.

  But why does the curfew toll sae low?

  And why do the mourners walk a-row?

  O ’tis Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son

  Who is lying stark, for his day is done.

  Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,

  It is no strong man who lies on the bier.

  O ’tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,

  I knew she would die at the autumn fall.

  Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,

  Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.

  O ’tis none of our kith and none of our kin,

  (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)

  But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,

  ‘Elle est morte, la Marguerite.’

  Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,

  And let the dead folk bury their dead.

  O mother, you know I loved her true:

  O mother, hath one grave room for two?

  LA BELLE GABRIELLE

  (From the French)

  Ah! could I charm the silver-breasted moon<
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  To lie with me upon the Latmian hill

  Through the hot hours of the purple noon

  Till of strange joys my lips had drunk their fill.

  Love could I change wan water into wine

  To make more glad some heavy-lidded bride

  Whose soul is sick with passion to entwine

  The crimson-caftaned lover at her side.

  Love could I make the lily-petals part

  And filch the treasures of its golden seed,

  Or swoon for passion in the rose’s heart

  Till its red leaves with redder pain did bleed.

  Love could I see Narcissus lean to kiss

  His laughing double in the glassy stream,

  Or hear the smitten lips of Salmacis

  Laugh low for pleasure of some unreal dream.

  Ah what to me were silver-breasted moon,

  Or all the sweets young Narciss’ could unfold,