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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, | 5 |
| Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more, | |
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| There by a dim and dark Lethæan well | |
| Young Charmides was lying, wearily | |
| He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel, | |
| And with its little rifled treasury | 10 |
| Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream, | |
| And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream, | |
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| 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 | 15 |
| 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. | |
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| Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw, | |
| And ever nigher still their faces came, | 20 |
| 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, | |
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| And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
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| 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, | 35 |
| Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quill! | |
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| 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 | 40 |
| Where passion walks with naked unshod feet | |
| And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet | |
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| In that wild throb when all existences | |
| Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy | |
| Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress | 45 |
| 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. | |
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