The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley :: :: University of Virginia Library

On such a day beyond the Argive hills
Some lithe boy-hunter, pushing thro' the weed
With shining forehead-hair and Delian eyes,
Comes thro' the tangle on a sudden stream;
Sees Pan abroad about the hills, or hears
The dripping rustle of a Naiad's feet,
A gleam in cypress shadows, as she fades
Down thro' the blue with leaf-shades on her cheek.
But she disdainful half and angry half,
With something of a smile behind it all,

Avoids the boy and crouches in the blue.
And as he comes the water scene is stirred,
And the large crane flaps heavy from the flags:
And the doves wrestle out against the boughs,
And the shrill coot drips screaming towards the sedge.

He with surprise in bloom across his brow
Fears the immortal nymph, yet longs and draws
Momently nearer: but his hounds in fear
Whimper and stoop and rub against his knees.

At last she, fearing lest he turn away,
As loth to lose him as he is loth to come,
So raises her a little with a smile,
And asks in smiling anger safe of harm
As May-frost just enough for mower's scythe,

Unfortunate, what brings thee to thy doom?

Zeal of the hunt, my hounds, and accident.

Is there no ancient song that such shall die,
Die in their rashness who with eyes unveiled
Have seen the flicker of immortal robes
Under a league of cypress? These have died
For little; but the daring of thine eyes
Is worthy twenty deaths. Why, wretched man,
Art gazing still? Art hungry to descend
Where Corè gathers not Ætnean flowers,
And leave the pleasant light?

Divine one, no,
It were ungracious to believe that death
Were fruit of beauty: rather let me live
With larger pulses having dared to know
How very beautiful the nymphs can be.

Since I must kill thee, come and speak to me.

I hail this sweet pre-eminence of death
More than the languid toilsome human years
Without thee and before thee. Give me, Zeus,
The lightning swallow wings to rend the air

Of interval between us, let me dash
A moth upon my torch and make an end.

Art come already? Dost already feel
The film upon thine eyelids steeping them?
Wouldst take my hand for comfort at the last?
Take it, for I am something merciful.

Too sweet and palpable to be a dream,
Warm, lithe, and tender hand, if this be death
Give me a life of deaths.

Nay, overbold
I gave thee but my hand and not my lips.

Alas, their fruit was tempting, and my end
So near and they so near, that I have dared
To rob a god of nectar.

Hence, away,
Too long thou cheatest doom: yet having been
Wrongful and once a thief, it makes thy guilt
Not greatly greater if thou thieve again.

Ay me, the throbbing tumult of my heart
Will scare my senses sooner than the doom
Of thy sweet vengeance, Goddess.

Then at least
Thou shalt have quiet ending: all thy wrong
Shall not distroy my pity: from this sedge
No further than a wren's flight is a cave
Where I will take thee and thine eyelids close:
Thou couldst not choose so beautiful a grave.
A silence deep in ferny tufts and leaves
That keep the warm sun of the old gone year.
Intricate bents are music at its mouth,
The netted toil of gossamer shall weave
A veil across to break the wandering rays
In colour, and to soften out the airs
Between the wine-dark ivies. Harsher sound
Than the belated clamour of a bee,
Or ripples like the summer in the elms,
Shall not invade the precincts of thy rest.
And if, for vast the mercy of the gods,
I should not come to kill thee at the last,
Then shalt thou build to Pan an altar here,
And in a fillet bring an yearling lamb.