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The Idol

Dear lad, let go her eyes.

They seem so blue,

So young and true;

Yet, if you only knew,

Could you be wise!

If you could only see

Her half as clear as she

Sees you!

And all this ivory,

And all this gold,

O is it possible

You have not been told

How often, how often,

They were bought and sold;

What hands have dared

To touch this ivory,

What vulgar fingers

Wandered in this gold!

Dear lad, had you but heard

From those red lips—

One strange dishevelled word,

How white your own soul would have seemed to you!

Then had you known

What sits upon the throne

Made by your pure heart and adoring knee;

That not in her

But you the worshipper

The wonder lives and all the mystery;

That but a mound of scented dust

Is she,

Shaped by your dreaming eyes

That cannot see,

A lamia of lust

In mask of Paradise,

A withered foulness, a stale harlotry!