Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/295



have had my dreams: ay, known indeed

The crowded visions of a fiery youth

Which haunt me still.

Methought that once I lay

Within some garden close, what time the Spring

Breaks like a bird from Winter, and the sky

Is sapphire-vaulted. The pure air was soft,

And the deep grass I lay on soft as air.

The strange and secret life of the young trees

Swelled in the green and tender bark, or burst

To buds of sheathèd emerald; violets

Peered from their nooks of hiding, half afraid

Of their own loveliness; the vermeil rose

Opened its heart, and the bright star-flower

Shone like a star of morning. Butterflies,

In painted liveries of brown and gold,

Took the shy bluebells as their pavilions

And seats of pleasaunce; overhead a bird 281