In sullen sweetness he stands, the fairest frail boy of the world, His languid head downbent with the hyacinthine curled Heavy load of his hair, in grape clusters shading his face Still dreaming, even in marble, over his body's grace. The rhythm of limbs that spring, like a silver birch on a hill, Eternally poised to move, eternally still. Wrapped in a dream of his beauty, unshaken by clashing years, He is grown too languid for love, too mournful for tears; And the stone that was white as a star when the sculptor's chisel sang Is stained with the colours of Time, till the weight of curls that hang Over his brow, are tarnished to gold that an Emperor knew And his limbs are flushed as a sunburnt peach to his own sweet hue. . . . So the greatly beloved lives, his beauty a flame in the mind When the ancient pitiful sins are blown as dust down the wind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OVID, OLD BUDDY, I WOULD DISCOURSE WITH YOU A WHILE by HAYDEN CARRUTH MATERNITY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TO JOHN BROWN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE SLAVE TRADE: VIEW FROM THE MIDDLE PASSAGE by CLARENCE MAJOR THE RAT by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |