YOUNG CHARMIDES

by: Oscar Wilde

      N melancholy moonless Acheron,
      Far from the goodly earth and joyous day,
      Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun
      Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May
      Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,
      Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

      There by a dim and dark Lethaean well
      Young Charmides was lying, wearily
      He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,
      And with its little rifled treasury
      Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,
      And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,

      When as he gazed into the watery glass
      And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned
      His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
      Across the mirror, and a little hand
      Stole into his, and warm lips timidly
      Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.

      Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,
      And ever nigher still their faces came,
      And nigher ever did their young mouths draw
      Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,
      And longing arms around her neck he cast,
      And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,

      And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,
      And all her maidenhood was his to slay,
      And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss
      Their passion waxed and waned, -- O why essay
      To pipe again of love too venturous reed!
      Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.

      To venturous poesy O why essay
      To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
      O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
      Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings,
      Till thou hast found the old Castilian rill,
      Or from the Lesbian waters plucked down Sappho's golden quill!

      Enough, enough that he whose life had been
      A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
      Could in thy loveless land of Hades glean
      One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
      Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
      And is not wounded, -- ah! enough that once their lips could meet

      In that wild throb when all existences
      Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
      Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
      Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
      Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
      Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.
"Young Charmides" is reprinted from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown Publishers, 1921.

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