{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/panthea",
 "title": "Panthea",
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1881,
  "venue": "Poems (1881)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1057"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/oscar-wilde_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1338",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lotus_Leaves",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wasted_Days_(from_a_Picture_Painted_by_Miss_V._T.)",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102953450",
   "https://archive.org/details/ravennarecitedin00wildrich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010824214",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006061074",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100217578",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013571082",
   "https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18770721-01.2.24"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 180,
  "n_stanzas": 30,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 71,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From passionate pain to deadlier delight⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I am too young to live without desire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too young art thou to waste this summer night",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Asking those idle questions which of old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wisdom is a childless heritage,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One pulse of passion⁠—youth’s first fiery glow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like water bubbling from a silver jar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That high in heaven she is hung so far",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and labouring moon.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fallen snow of petals where the breeze",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of boyish limbs in water⁠—are not these",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough for thee, dost thou desire more?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal store.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For wasted days of youth to make atone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hearken they now to either good or ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mourning the old glad days before they knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What evil things the heart of man could dream, and dreaming do.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And far beneath the brazen floor they see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like swarming flies the crowd of little men,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The bustle of small lives, then wearily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Kissing each others’ mouths, and mix more deep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There all day long the golden-vestured sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, when the gaudy web of noon is spun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fresh from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There in the green heart of some garden close",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her warm soft body like the briar rose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which would be white yet blushes at its pride,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There never does that dreary north-wind blow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To wake them in the silver-fretted night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Alas! they know the far Lethaean spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The violet-hidden waters well they know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where one whose feet with tired wandering",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are faint and broken may take heart and go,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And from those dark depths cool and crystalline",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But we oppress our natures, God or Fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is our enemy, we starve and feed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On vain repentance⁠—O we are born too late!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What balm for us in bruisèd poppy seed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who crowd into one finite pulse of time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite crime.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O we are wearied of this sense of guilt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied of pleasure’s paramour despair,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied of every temple we have built,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No little coin of bronze can bring the soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over Death’s river to the sunless land,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Victim and wine and vow are all in vain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We are resolved into the supreme air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are made one with what we touch and see,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With beat of systole and of diastole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And mighty waves of single Being roll",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From nerveless germ to man, for we are part",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From lower cells of waking life we pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To full perfection; thus the world grows old:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We who are godlike now were once a mass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Unsentient or of joy or misery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To water-lilies; the brown fields men till",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will be more fruitful for our love to-night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The man’s last passion, and the last red spear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That from the lily leaps, the asphodel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of too much beauty, and the timid shame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the young bridegroom at his lover’s eyes⁠—these with the same",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One sacrament are consecrate, the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At daybreak know a pleasure not less real",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So when men bury us beneath the yew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy crimson-stainèd mouth a rose will be,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when the white narcissus wantonly",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Kisses the wind its playmate some faint joy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And thus without life’s conscious torturing pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In some sweet flower we will feel the sun,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the linnet’s throat will sing again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as two gorgeous-mailèd snakes will run",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Over our graves, or as two tigers creep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And give them battle! How my heart leaps up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To think of that grand living after death",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In beast and bird and flower, when this cup,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And with the pale leaves of some autumn day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul earth’s earliest conqueror becomes earth’s last great prey.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O think of it! We shall inform ourselves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the meadows, shall not be more near",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than you and I to nature’s mysteries, for we shall hear",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The thrush’s heart beat, and the daisies grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On sunless days in winter, we shall know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By whom the silver gossamer is spun,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who paints the diapered fritillaries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If yonder daffodil had lured the bee",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Into its gilded womb, or any rose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had hung with crimson lamps its little tree!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Is the light vanished from our golden sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That we are nature’s heritors, and one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With every pulse of life that beats the air?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And we two lovers shall not sit afar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Critics of nature, but the joyous sea",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Part of the mighty universal whole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through all aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We shall be notes in that great Symphony",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}