Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/154

 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 night-jar 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 140