As sometimes through a stand of leafless trees
Shines the full brilliance of a forward spring,
There is yet nothing in him that foresees
The blossoming of glory that will sing
All poetry to come with powers to lay
Us almost dead–no shadows cloud his eyes,
His temples are too cool for wreaths of bay,
And only later from his brow will rise
Gardens of roses, dancing on their stems
From which the petals, singly falling on
The earth, will hear first whispers of his hymns–
The lost and silent head we did not know,
Where golden apples ripened in his eyes,
Yet in this glow of marble trunk and thighs
The flame still flickers–only now trimmed low–
Still holds and shimmers. Else, the curve of breast
Would not so blind you, nor would a faint trace
Of smile spill through the loins seeking that place
Where the god’s procreation lay at rest.
Lacking such fire, this stone would stand a wreck
Hacked off above the clean plunge of the neck,
Not gleaming like the pelt of some wild thing,