Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/120

 In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white

At its own beauty, hung across the stream,

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

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.

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 up-rose

Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky

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 106