Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/121

 High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,

Did no strange dream or evil memory make

Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?

Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years

Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day,

It never knew the tide of cankering fears

Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey,

The dread desire of death it never knew,

Or how all folk that they were born must rue.

For we to death with pipe and dancing go,

Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,

As some sad river wearied of its flow

Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,

Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!

And counts it gain to die so gloriously.

We mar our lordly strength in barren strife

With the world's legions led by clamorous care,

It never feels decay but gathers life

From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,

We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty,

It is the child of all eternity. 107