Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/162

  
The honey of her infant lips,
The bread and wine of her sweet smile,
The wild game of her roving eye,
Does him to infancy beguile;
 
For as he eats and drinks, he grows
Younger and younger every day;
And on the desert wild they both
Wander in terror and dismay.

Like the wild stag she flees away,
Her fear plants many a thicket wild;
While he pursues her night and day,
By various arts of love beguiled;
 
By various arts of love and hate;
Till (the wide desert planted o'er
With labyrinths of wayward love,
Where roam the lion, wolf, and boar,)
 
Till he becomes a wayward babe,
And she a weeping woman old.
Then many a lover wanders here;
The sun and stars are nearer roll'd;
 
The trees bring forth sweet ecstasy
To all who in the desert roam;
Till many a city there is built,
And many a pleasant shepherd's home.