Latest quotes | Random quotes | Vote! | Latest comments | Submit quote

Boys Bathing

Round them a fierce, wide, crazy noon
Heaves with crushed lips and glowing sides
Against the huge and drowsy sun.
Beneath them turn the glittering tides
Where dizzy waters reel with gold,
And strange, rich trophies sink and rise
From decks of sunken argosies.
With shining arms they cleave the cold
Far reaches of the sea, and beat
The hissing foam with flash of feet
Into bright fangs, while breathlessly
Curls over them the amorous sea.

Naked they laugh and revel there.
One shakes the sea-drops from his hair,
Then, singing, takes the bubbles: one
Lies couched among the shells, the sands
Telling gold hours between his hands:
One floats like sea-wrack in the sun.
The gods of Youth, the lords of Love,
Greeks of eternal Thessaly,
Mocking the powers they know not of,
Naked and unembraced and free!
To whom the Siren sings in vain
To-day, to-morrow who shall be
The destined sport of gods and men.

Unseen, the immortal ones are here,
Remembering their mortal loves-
The strange, sweet flesh, the lips that were
Frail and most perishably fair.
Diana leaves her whispering groves,
And of Actaeon dreams and sighs,
And hears the hounds bay in the wood.
Oh, Cythera, the trembling blood
Upon one petal's paling mouth
Before thee and this noon must rise
While thou remember Adon's eyes!
One mournful and complaining shade
Beyond Avernus shakes his head,
Dreaming of one beloved youth
Borne from him, lost and dazed and dead,
Dragged by the nymphs avenging hair
Into the sea-bed oozing dim,
In that cold twilight unaware
Of each great sunrise over him.
. . . . . .
One day, while still these waters run,
And noon still heaves beneath this sun,
You shall creep, unremembering,

[...] Read more

poem by Report problemRelated quotes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Share
 
 
This text contains a mistake
This text is duplicate
The author of this text is another person
Another problem

More info, if necessary

Your name

Your e-mail

Search


Recent searches | Top searches