The Poetry of Oscar Wilde. Оскар Уайльд

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       And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall.

       And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring

       While the last violet loiters by the well,

       And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing

       The song of Linus through a sunny dell

       Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold

       And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold

       And sweet with young Lycoris to recline

       In some Illyrian valley far away,

       Where canopied on herbs amaracine

       We too might waste the summer-tranced day

       Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,

       While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

       But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot

       Of some long-hidden God should ever tread

       The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute

       Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head

       By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed

       To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.

       Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,

       Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!

       Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler

       Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn

       These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,

       For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield,

       Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose,

       Which all day long in vales Aeolian

       A lad might seek in vain for, overgrows

       Our hedges like a wanton courtesan

       Unthrifty of her beauty, lilies too

       Ilissus never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue

       Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs

       For swallows going south, would never spread

       Their azure tints between the Attic vines;

       Even that little weed of ragged red,

       Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady

       Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy.

       Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames

       Which to awake were sweeter ravishment

       Than ever Syrinx wept for, diadems

       Of brown be-studded orchids which were meant

       For Cytheraea’s brows are hidden here

       Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer

       There is a tiny yellow daffodil,

       The butterfly can see it from afar,

       Although one summer evening’s dew could fill

       Its little cup twice over ere the star

       Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold

       And be no prodigal, each leaf is flecked with spotted gold

       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 burdens 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 or girl and yet is both,

       Fed by two fires and unsatisfied

       Through their excess, each passion being loath

       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 the 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 carven room,

       And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy

       Trimming 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

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