Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/100

 For Cytheræa's brows are hidden here

Unknown to Cytheræa, 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 burden 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, 86