Athanasia

To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught

      Of all the great things men have saved from Time,

The withered body of a girl was brought

      Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,

And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid

In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band

      Which swathed the Egyptian's body,—lo! was found

Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand

      A little seed, which sown in English ground

Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear

And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.

With such strange arts this flower did allure

      That all forgotten was the asphodel,

And the brown bee, the lily's paramour,

      Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell,

For not a thing of earth it seemed to be,

But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.

In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white

      At its own beauty, hung across the stream,

The purple dragon-fly had no delight

      With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam,

Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss,

Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.

For love of it the passionate nightingale

      Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king,

And the pale dove no longer cared to sail

      Through the wet woods at time of blossoming,

But round this flower of Egypt sought to float,

With silvered wing and amethystine throat.

While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue

      A cooling wind crept from the land of snows,

And the warm south with tender tears of dew

      Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose

Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky

On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie.

But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field

      The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune,

And broad and glittering like an argent shield

      High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,

Did no strange dream or evil memory make

Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?

Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years

      Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day,

It never knew the tide of cankering fears

      Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey,

The dread desire of death it never knew,

Or how all folk that they were born must rue.

For we to death with pipe and dancing go,

      Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,

As some sad river wearied of its flow

      Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,

Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!

And counts it gain to die so gloriously.

We mar our lordly strength in barren strife

      With the world's legions led by clamorous care,

It never feels decay but gathers life

      From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,

We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty,

It is the child of all eternity.

The woes of man may serve an idle lay,

      Nor were it hard fond hearers to enthral,

Telling how Egypt's glory passed away,

      How London from its pinnacle must fall;

But this white flower, the conqueror of time,

Seems all too great for any boyish rhyme.