Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/60

 Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,

They are not dead, thine ancient votaries,

Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile

Is better than a thousand victories,

Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo

Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood

And consecrate their being, I at least

Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,

And in thy temples found a goodlier feast

Than this starved age can give me, spite of all

Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,

The woods of white Colonos are not here,

On our bleak hills the olive never blows,

No simple priest conducts his lowing steer

Up the steep marble way, nor through the town

Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,

Whose very name should be a memory

To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest

Beneath the Roman walls, and melody 46