Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ousel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their
bodies slept.
And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford.
III
In 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
Checkers 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.
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