TULIPS Epithalamion
1.
Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
to toy with thy extraordinary lust,
(the sinuous rain which rising from thy bed
steals to his wife the sky and hour by hour
wholly renews her pale flesh with delight)
āimmortally whence are the high gods fled?
Speak elm eloquent pandar with thy nod
significant to the ecstatic earth
in token of his coming whom her soul
burns to embraceāand didst thou know the god
from but the imprint of whose cloven feet
the shrieking dryad sought her leafy goal,
at the mere echo of whose shining mirth
the furious hearts of mountains ceased to beat?
Wind beautifully who wanderest
over smooth pages of forgotten joy
proving the peaceful theorems of the flowers
ādidst eāer depart upon more exquisite quest?
and did thy fortunate fingers sometime dwell
(within a greener shadow of secret bowers)
among the curves of that delicious boy
whose serious grace one goddess loved too well?
Chryselephantine Zeus Olympian
sceptred colossus of the Pheidian soul
whose eagle frights creation, in whose palm
Nike presents the crown sweetest to man,
whose lilied robe the sunās white hands emboss,
betwixt whose absolute feet anoint with calm
of intent stars circling the acerb pole
poises, smiling, the diadumenos
in whose young chiseled eyes the people saw
their once again victorious Pantarkes
(whose grace the prince of artists made him bold
to imitate between the feet of awe),
thunderer whose omnipotent brow showers
its curls of unendured eternal gold
over the infinite breast in bright degrees,
whose pillow is the graces and the hours,
father of gods and men whose subtle throne
twain sphinxes bear each with a writhing youth
caught to her brazen breasts, whose foot-stool tells
how fought the looser of the warlike zone
of her that brought forth tall Hippolytus,
lord on whose pedestal the deep expels
(over Seleneās car closing uncouth)
of Helios the sweet wheels tremulousā
are there no kings in Argos, that the song
is silent, of the steep unspeaking tower
within whose brightening strictness Danae
saw the night severed and the glowing throng
descend, felt on her flesh the amorous strain
of gradual hands and yielding to that fee
her eager bodyās unimmortal flower
knew in the darkness a more burning rain?
2.
And still the mad magnificent herald Spring
assembles beauty from forgetfulness
with the wild trump of April:witchery
of sound and odour drives the wingless thing
man forth into bright air, for now the red
leaps in the mapleās cheek, and suddenly
by shining hordes in sweet unserious dress
ascends the golden crocus from the dead.
On dappled dawn f...