Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/156

 And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds

Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,

And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds

Is in his homestead for the thievish fly

To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead

Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not, it was for thee

I kept my love, I knew that thou would'st come

To rid me of this pallid chastity;

Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam

Of all the wide Ægean, brightest star

Of ocean's azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would'st come, for when at first

The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of Spring

Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst

To myriad multitudinous blossoming

Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons

That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes' rapturous tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,

And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,

Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy 142