Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/247

 Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! what else had I a boy to do,—

For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the silent-footed years pursue.

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once the storm of youth is past,

Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent pilot comes at last.

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the blind worm battens on the root,

And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion bears no fruit

Ah! what else had I to do but love you, God's own mother was less dear to me,

And less dear the Cytheræan rising like an argent lily from the sea.

I have made my choice, have lived my poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days,

I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the poet's crown of bays. 233