Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it—
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh cruel I to intercept it!
Shelley.
Shine forth, night-wandering, horned, and vigilant queen,
Through the shy lattice shoot thy silver sheen;
Illume Callistion: for a goddess may
Gaze on a pair of lovers while they play.
Thou enviest her and me, I know, fair moon,
For thou didst once burn for Endymion.
We trod the brimming wine-press ankle-high,
Singing wild songs of Bacchic revelry:
Forth flowed the must in rills; our cups of wood
Like cockboats swam upon the honeyed flood:
With these we drew, and as we filled them, quaffed,
With no warm Naiad to allay the draught:
But fair Rhodanthe bent above the press,
And the fount sparkled with her loveliness:
We in our souls were shaken; yea, each man
Quaked beneath Bacchus and the Paphian.
Ah me! the one flowed at our feet in streams—
The other fooled us with mere empty dreams!
[230] Comus, 463, etc.
Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all;
A sting and honey and a body small.