On the edge of the wild-wood
Grey doves fluttering:
Grey doves of Astarte
To the woods at daybreak
Lazily uttering
Their murmured enchantment,
Old as man's childhood;
While she, pale divinity
Of hidden evil,
Silvers the regions chaste
Of cold sky, and broodeth
Over forests primeval
And all that thorny waste's
Wooded infinity.
‘ Lovely goddess of groves,’
Cried I,‘ what enchanted
Sinister recesses
Of these lone shades
May still be haunted
By thy demon caresses,
Thy unholy loves?’
But clear day quelleth
Her dominion lonely,
And the soft ring-dove,
Murmuring, telleth
That dark sin only
From man's lust springeth,
In man's heart dwelleth.