Mar 11, 2024
Santa Decca
Oscar Wilde
“The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves, And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er: Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more; Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King. And yet–perchance in this sea-tranced isle, Chewing the bitter fruit of memory, Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. Ah Love! If such there be, then it were well For us to fly his anger: nay, but see, The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.”
Wilde composed the poem on his arrival in Corfu, April 1877.
