Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON A BUST OF ANTINOUS, by CLINTON SCOLLARD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON A BUST OF ANTINOUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Upon your face, with all its youthful glory,
Last Line: Oh, blithe bithynian boy!
Subject(s): Sacrifices; Sculpture & Sculptors; Youth


UPON your face, with all its youthful glory,
The mould of beauty with no base alloy,
Mournful I read your life's pathetic story,
Oh, blithe Bithynian boy!

How down your wood-ways green and meadows bloomy
Buoyant you roved through dreamy days and long,
And deeming naught within the world was gloomy,
Gave the gods praise and song;

Knelt, with your soft cheeks glowing, to Apollo,
Hung garlands fair where Venus was enshrined,
Heard dryad-voices from the tree-trunks hollow,
Faun-laughters on the wind.

How the proud Caesar came and you departed,
Braving the reaches of the barren foam
To follow him, capricious, myriad-hearted,
Unto all-conquering Rome;

How by the Tiber, in the sunlight golden,
While round you frowned the Olympians, now disowned,
You pondered deep o'er many a volume olden
Of cruel creeds dethroned;

How, when encamped on fiery sands Egyptian,
You, seeking truth beneath their gods' dark brows,
Were lured to death by some priest-wrought inscription,
Believing in their vows;

I seem to see, clear-limned as with a stylus,
The last sad scene, your pitiful despair, --
The slow and somber flow of haunted Nilus
Drowning your parting prayer.

Thus in the loyal hope of fate forfending
From him whose guerdon was the end of joy,
You brought your life to sacrificial ending,
Oh, blithe Bithynian boy!





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net