Three Turquoises in a Coffer of Nacre

"In a coffer of nacre I have three wondrous turquoises.
 He who wears them on his forehead can imagine things 
 which are not..." --Oscar Wilde, Salomé.

Ah, the wondrous pearly coffer!
In it crouch the matchless jewels,
Their beauty an unending offer
Of still waters where there cools,
Lapped and cradled, some priceless treasure.
Would you answer their aqua measure?

For they do say, that who he binds
One turquoise in the center of his brow,
The melody of gold he finds,
And each leaf turns to jasmine on the bough,
Gusting in his face with a sweet perfume
From the lands that no stars illume.

For they do say, that with this third eye
That sees beyond the dreary earth,
One walks beneath a faery sky,
And in him wonder has its birth,
And for beauty a sick longing;
But he hears naught of Faery's songing.

For they do say, do two turquoises
On a man's brow come to rest,
Then he can hear the Lords of Faery's voices,
And his heart goes still in his breast
With the sound of the laughter there,
Enchanting into lilies and swans the air.

For they do say, with those two eyes,
One hears the restless dancing stream,
And the rippling aurora of the skies
Appears to him in a fiery dream.
Wearing two turquoises, brilliant yearning
Sets the human heart to burning.

What? What do turquoises three do?
Who can tell? And who will say?
No one has ever worn more than two.
Perhaps three steal your soul away.
Of sight and sound you are not bereft;
If you have those, then what is left?

Would you smell the flowers on a faery mead,
Or feel the mint-bright grass you crush?
Oh, but that would be perilous indeed!
Best to be in Faeryland's still hush,
Worse to be able to hear each singing bird;
To want Faeryland itself is but absurd.

The turquoises are enough for anyone;
They grant sight into a world fairer
Than ours, beneath a pendant sun,
Not, like our sun, a brazen glarer,
But drifting with lowered eyelids, in love
With the twilight it can see from above.

Enough for me are the song and the sight;
Not for the world would I bear all three.
Perhaps I am a coward, and you are right.
But I am afraid of what I would see,
And what, more precisely, I would do,
If I could feel the wind that blows through

The flowers that bespangle the grass,
And smell those flowers- they would drown
Me; into Faeryland I might well pass.
And how can one wear a dreamer's crown
When the world is all about, and waiting?
Let us shut the coffer, turquoises forsaking,

And turn our minds to other matters.
We are mortal; above all, we are human.
Not for us is the beauty that shatters
Every other beauty; fairer than heaven
Or than our dreams is the land of Faery,
But mortals were not meant there to tarry.