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 Acton 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 bows 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,         Whom Life has humbled and subdued,         Ruined your bodies, tamed your blood,         No more the lords of anything.         But spent and racked with mortal pains,         The slow tide pushing through your veins,         Coldly you face this magic shore;         For you the disenchanted noon         Scarce haunted is with ghosts that were         Once, and were you, and are no more.         Faltering against the wind and sun         That vainly seek your hair for gold,         Stubborned with habit, grey and old,         You know not why you wander here,         Nor what vague dream pursues you still,         For Life has taken fullest toll         Of all your beauty; on each soul         Love's hand has left his bitter mark,         Has had of you his utmost will,         And thrusts you headlong to the dark.         And colder than these waters are         The stream that takes your limbs at last:         Earth's vales and hills drift slowly past...         One shore far off, and one more far.