The Scented Garden

22 and yearn in utter worship towards the all-glorious one, not daring to raise my eyes to yonder rosy shaft of Parian stone. The love in my heart melts all the winter of my body, and the warm salt spring gush from my eyes upon the ground — surely the latter spring shall see green violets grow thereon ! Then, in the hush of the sunset, come noiseless hoofs treading the enamelled turf ; and ere I know it a fierce lithe hairy body has gripped mine, and the dread wand of magic shudders it live way into my being, so that the foundations of my soul are shaken. The heavy breath and the rank kisses of a faun are on my neck, and his teeth fasten in my flesh — a terrible heave flings our bodies into mid- air with the athletic passion that unites us with the utmost God — “ hid ’i th’ middle o’ matter ” — and the life of my strange lover boils within by bo- wels — there is a ronronnement as of myriad nymphs and fauns, satyrs and dryads, — a stirring of the waters of life — we fall back in an ecstasy — somewhat like death — with the gasping murmur Pan ! Pan ! Io Pan ! while the marmorean splen- dour before us turns with the last ray of sunlight his goodly smile upon our still and stricken bo- dies — the heap of the slain of Priapus — perinde ac cadaver — ah ! it is night, it is death. Alas ! it is not sunset ; here is no glade, but a noisy London square ; we cannot live, we must talk ; we cannot love, we must dissect. We know that these people are not the gracious children of God, but the evil and laborious gnomes of hell ; creatures whose lives are given to the sense- less lust of gold, the infamous toil of coynte, coun- ter and countinghouse. They understand us only enough to know that we are happy ; therefore they hate us ; therefore as they spat on Christ, forsaken of all but John, his sweet-voiced catamite, so does the cur to-day spit in the face of Oscar Wilde, as he goes from the judge to the prison.