| TO that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught | |
| Of all the great things men have saved from Time, | |
| The withered body of a girl was brought | |
| Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime, | |
| And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid | 5 |
| In the dim womb of some black pyramid. | |
| |
| But when they had unloosed the linen band | |
| Which swathed the Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found | |
| Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand | |
| A little seed, which sown in English ground | 10 |
| Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear, | |
| And spread rich odours through our springtide air. | |
| |
| With such strange arts this flower did allure | |
| That all forgotten was the asphodel, | |
| And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour, | 15 |
| Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, | |
| For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, | |
| But stolen from some heavenly Arcady. | |
| |
| In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white | |
| At its own beauty, hung across the stream, | 20 |
| The purple dragon-fly had no delight | |
| With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam, | |
| Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, | |
| Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis. | |
| |
| For love of it the passionate nightingale | 25 |
| Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king, | |
| And the pale dove no longer cared to sail | |
| Through the wet woods at time of blossoming, | |
| But round this flower of Egypt sought to float, | |
| With silvered wing and amethystine throat. | 30 |
| |
| While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue | |
| A cooling wind crept from the land of snows, | |
| And the warm south with tender tears of dew | |
| Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos uprose | |
| Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky | 35 |
| On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie. | |
| |
| But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field | |
| The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, | |
| And broad and glittering like an argent shield | |
| High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon, | 40 |
| Did no strange dream or evil memory make | |
| Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake? | |
| |
| Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years | |
| Seemed but the lingering of a summer’s day, | |
| It never knew the tide of cankering fears | 45 |
| Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey, | |
| The dread desire of death it never knew, | |
| Or how all folk that they were born must rue. | |
| |
| For we to death with pipe and dancing go, | |
| Nor would we pass the ivory gate again, | 50 |
| As some sad river wearied of its flow | |
| Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men, | |
| Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea! | |
| And counts it gain to die so gloriously. | |
| |
| We mar our lordly strength in barren strife | 55 |
| With the world’s legions led by clamorous care, | |
| It never feels decay but gathers life | |
| From the pure sunlight and the supreme air, | |
| We live beneath Time’s wasting sovereignty, | |
| It is the child of all eternity. | 60 |
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