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By Oscar Wilde , Too soon indeed! Or danced on by the lads of Arcady! The hidden secret of eternal bliss Known to the Grecian here a man might find, Ah! And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.
And I will cut a reed by yonder spring And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan Wonder what young intruder dares to sing In these still haunts, where never foot of man Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.
And I will tell you why the jacinth wears Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, And why the hapless nightingale forbears To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast, And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east. Spirit of Beauty! 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! Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left One silver voice to sing his threnody, But ah! The little laugh of water falling down Is not so musical, the clammy gold Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.
