And wake mad passions in the
senseless
stone!
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
* * * * *
WITH Syrian oils his brows were bright: and wide-spread as a tent at
noon
His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a larger light.
His long hair was nine cubits' span and coloured like that yellow gem
Which hidden in their garment's hem the merchants bring from
Kurdistan.
His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new-made wine:
The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his eyes.
His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veins
of blue:
And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his flowing silk.
* * * * *
ON pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright to look upon:
For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean-emerald,
That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Colchian caves
Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to the Colchian
witch.
Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed corybants,
And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot,
And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter as he rode
Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding peacock-fans.
The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their painted ships:
The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite.
The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich apparel bound with
cords:
His train was borne by Memphian lords: young kings were glad to be his
guests.
Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon's altar day and night,
Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon's carven
house--and now
Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone
to stone
For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith!
Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the mouldering gates:
Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted drums.
And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of Horus sits
And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars of the peristyle
* * * * *
THE god is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand
I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair.
And many a wandering caravan of stately negroes silken-shawled,
Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the neck that none can
span.
And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous
To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy paladin.
* * * * *
GO, seek his fragments on the moor and wash them in the evening dew,
And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated paramour!
Go, seek them where they lie alone and from their broken pieces make
Thy bruised bedfellow!
And wake mad passions in the senseless stone!
Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved your body! oh, be kind,
Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls of linen round his
limbs!
Wind round his head the figured coins! stain with red fruits those
pallid lips!
Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple for his barren loins!
* * * * *
AWAY to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one God has ever died.
Only one God has let His side be wounded by a soldier's spear.
But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the hundred-cubit gate
Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies for thy head.
Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains his lidless eyes
Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning unto thee.
And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black and oozy bed
And till thy coming will not spread his waters on the withering corn.
