But often from the thorny labyrinth

  And tangled branches of the circling wood

  The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth

  Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood

  Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,

  Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

  The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball

  Along the reedy shore, and circumvent

  Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal

  For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,

  And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,

  Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

  On this side and on that a rocky cave,

  Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands,

  Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave

  Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,

  As though it feared to be too soon forgot

  By the green rush, its playfellow—and yet, it is a spot

  So small, that the inconstant butterfly

  Could steal the hoarded money from each flower

  Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy

  Its over-greedy love—within an hour

  A sailor boy, were he but rude enow

  To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

  Would almost leave the little meadow bare,

  For it knows nothing of great pageantry,

  Only a few narcissi here and there

  Stand separate in sweet austerity,

  Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,

  And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

  Hither the billow brought him, and was glad

  Of such dear servitude, and where the land

  Was virgin of all waters laid the lad

  Upon the golden margent of the strand,

  And like a lingering lover oft returned

  To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

  Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,

  That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,

  Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost

  Had withered up those lilies white and red

  Which, while the boy would through the forest range,

  Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

  And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,

  Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied

  The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,

  And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,

  And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade

  Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

  Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be

  So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms

  Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny,

  And longed to listen to those subtle charms

  Insidious lovers weave when they would win

  Some fencèd fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

  To yield her treasure unto one so fair,

  And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,

  Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,

  And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth

  Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid

  Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

  Returned to fresh assault, and all day long

  Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,

  And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,

  Then frowned to see how froward was the boy

  Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,

  Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine,

  Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,

  But said, “He will awake, I know him well,

  He will awake at evening when the sun

  Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel,

  This sleep is but a cruel treachery

  To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

  Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line

  Already a huge Triton blows his horn,

  And weaves a garland from the crystalline

  And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn

  The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,

  For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral-crownèd head,

  We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,

  And a blue wave will be our canopy,

  And at our feet the water-snakes will curl

  In all their amethystine panoply

  Of diamonded mail, and we will mark

  The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

  Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold

  Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep

  His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,

  And we will see the painted dolphins sleep

  Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks

  Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous flocks.

  And tremulous opal-hued anemones

  Will wave their purple fringes where we tread

  Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies

  Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread

  The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,

  And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.”

  But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun

  With gaudy pennon flying passed away

  Into his brazen House, and one by one

  The little yellow stars began to stray

  Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed

  She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

  And cried, “Awake, already the pale moon

  Washes the trees with silver, and the wave

  Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,

  The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave

  The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,

  And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky grass.

  Nay, though thou art a God, be not so coy,

  For in yon stream there is a little reed

  That often whispers how a lovely boy

  Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,

  Who when his cruel pleasure he had done

  Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

  Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still

  With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir

  Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill

  Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher

  Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen

  The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

  Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,

  And every morn a young and ruddy swain

  Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,

  And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain

  By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;

  But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

  With little crimson feet, which with its store

  Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad

  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 unto 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 archèd cord; aye, 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 parchèd 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.”

  Scarce 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 barbèd 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 wingèd 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 pitiful 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 loneliness

  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 aide

  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.