Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/292

 Sing you this song and these unhallowed lays,

Like the brown bird of grief insatiate

Crying for sorrow of its dreary days;

Crying for Itys, Itys, in the vale—

The nightingale! The nightingale!

Yet I would that to me they had given

The fate of that singer so clear,

Fleet wings to fly up unto heaven,

Away from all mourning and fear;

For ruin and slaughter await me—the cleaving with sword and the spear.

Whence come these crowding fancies on thy brain,

Sent by some god it may be, yet for naught?

Why dost thou sing with evil-tongued refrain,

Moulding thy terrors to this hideous strain

With shrill, sad cries, as if by death distraught?

Why dost thou tread that path of prophecy,

Where, upon either hand,

Landmarks for ever stand

With horrid legend for all men to see? 278