virginity, And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead, And all the pain of things unsatisfied, And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing side. p. 126 Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan, And very pitiful to see her die Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known The joy of passion, that dread mystery Which not to know is not to live at all, And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall. But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere, Who with Adonis all night long had lain Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady, On team of silver doves and gilded wain Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star, And when low down she spied the hapless pair, And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry, Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air As though it were a viol, hastily p. 127She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume, And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous doom. p. 127 For as a gardener turning back his head To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows With careless scythe too near some flower bed, And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose, And with the flower’s loosened loneliness Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness Driving his little flock along the mead Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede And made the gaudy moth forget its pride, Treads down their brimming golden chalices Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages; Or as a schoolboy tired of his book Flings himself down upon the reedy grass And plucks two water-lilies from the brook, And for a time forgets the hour glass, Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way, And lets the hot sun kill them, even go these lovers lay. p. 128And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty, Or else that mightier maid whose care it is To guard her strong and stainless majesty Upon the hill Athenian,—alas! That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should pass.’ p. 128 So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl In the great golden waggon tenderly (Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry Had
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