Tale of Archais

66 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Diamond and pearl, between the pleasant bars Of cool green trees that avenued the grove. Zeus wandered through their bounds, and dreamt of love. Weary of women’s old lascivious breed, The large luxurious lips of Ganymede, He, weary of tainted kiss and feverish lust, Esteeming love a desert of dry dust Because he found no freshness, no restraint, No virgin bosom, lips without a taint Of lewd imagining, yet passed not by With scorn of curled lip and contempt of eye The chaste abandon of the sleeping maid, But looked upon her lips, checked course, and stayed, And noted all the virginal fresh air Of Charicles, the maiden head half bare To Phoibos’ kiss, half veiled by dimpled arms Within whose love it rested, all her charms Half-shown, half-hidden, amorous but chaste. And so, between the branches interlaced And all the purple white-starred undergrowth, Zeus crept beside the maid, little loath To waken her caresses, and let noon Fade into midnight in the amorous swoon