Fawn at my feet,
fantastic
Sphinx!
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman and half animal!
Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my
knee!
And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx!
And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and grasp
The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws!
* * * * *
A THOUSAND weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn's gaudy liveries.
But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on
Hippogriffs.
O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt?
And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony
And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend her head in mimic awe
To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from the brine?
And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon on his catafalque?
And did you follow Amenalk, the God of Heliopolis?
And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear the moon-horned Io weep?
And know the painted kings who sleep beneath the wedge-shaped Pyramid?
* * * * *
LIFT up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one
sinks!
Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me all your memories!
Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered with the Holy Child,
And how you led them through the wild, and how they slept beneath your
shade.
Sing to me of that odorous green eve when crouching by the marge
You heard from Adrian's gilded barge the laughter of Antinous
And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched with hot and
hungry stare
The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pomegranate mouth!
Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-formed bull was stalled!
Sing to me of the night you crawled across the temple's granite plinth
When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning Mandragores,
And the great torpid crocodile within the tank shed slimy tears,
And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered back into the Nile,
And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as in your claws you
seized their snake
And crept away with it to slake your passion by the shuddering palms.
* * * * *
WHO were your lovers? who were they who wrestled for you in the dust?
Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had you, every day?
Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you on the reedy banks?
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled
couch?
Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward you in the mist?
Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as you passed
them by?
And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what horrible Chimera came
With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed new wonders from your
womb?
* * * * *
OR had you shameful secret quests and did you harry to your home
Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock crystal breasts?
