Page:Poems, Alan Seeger, 1916.djvu/69

 Close by upon a beryl column, clad

In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,

They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,

The nude Antinous. That gentle face,

Forever beautiful, forever sad,

Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,

Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile

At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.

And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,

Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,

Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore

Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,

Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore

Or Venus' bed in her enchanted mound,

While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,

All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.

'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,

Thither with one fair spirit to retire,

Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love

And feast on kisses to the heart's desire;

Where by a casement opening on a grove,

Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir,

A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,

Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.

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