Inn of Dreams

<SPAN name="31"></SPAN> <br/> <br/> <p>Hyacinthus</p> <p>Fair boy, how gay the morning must have seemed<br/> Before the fatal game that murdered thee!<br/> Of such a dawn my wistful heart has dreamed:<br/> Surely I too have lived in Arcady<br/> When Spring, lap-full of roses, ran to meet<br/> White Aphrodite risen from the sea . . .</p> <p>Perchance I saw thee then, so glad and fleet;<br/> Hasten to greet Apollo, stoop to bind<br/> The gold and jewelled sandals on his feet,<br/> While he so radiant, so divinely kind,<br/> Lured thee with honeyed words to be his friend,<br/> All heedless of thy fate, for Love is blind.</p> <p>For Love is blind and cruel, and the end<br/> Of every joy is sorrow and distress.<br/> And when immortal creatures lightly bend<br/> To kiss the lips of simple loveliness,<br/> Swords are unsheathed in silence, and clouds rise,<br/> Some God is jealous of the mute caress . . .</p> <p>But who shall mourn thy death—ah, not the wise?<br/> Better to perish in thy happiest hour,<br/> To close in sight of beauty thy dark eyes,<br/> And, dying so, be changed into a flower,<br/> Than that the stealthy and relentless years<br/> Should steal that grace which was thy only dower.</p> <p>And bring thee in return dull cares and tears,<br/> And difficult days and sickness and despair . . .<br/> O, not for thee the griefs and sordid fears<br/> That, like a burden, trembling age must bear;<br/> Slain in thy youth, by the sweet hands of Love,<br/> Thou shalt remain for ever young and fair . . .</p> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />