Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/155

 By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;

But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store

Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad

Had stolen from the lofty sycamore

At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had

Flown off in search of berried juniper

Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency

So constant as this simple shepherd-boy

For my poor lips, his joyous purity

And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy

A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;

For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss,

His argent forehead, like a rising moon

Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,

Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon

Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse

For Cytheræa, the first silky down

Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and brown: 141