Golden as dawn he stands amidst the green,
Flecked with an amber shadow, and his eyes
Are amorous of some dream whose beauty lies
Beyond the stars in mythic paths unseen.

No reed of yellow corn is gold as he,
His naked body like old ivory …

Sweet brow to love unknown,—each veinéd wrist
Blue like an early violet 'neath the snow,
His lips more brilliant than the sun's first glow,
And lips that only virgin winds have kissed.

Some cloud-fay might have woven such symmetry,
A line of flowing color, throat to knee.

He pauses midmost in the wooded dell
Eager of every sinew, cheek alight
As of a million moonbeams in the night,—
His breath is like the bloom of asphodel.
What quest has sent him here this silent hour
When all the east is bursting into flower?

What thought perturbs the calmness of his face
In that still moment's meditative light?—
Some dreams that sends him shuddering and white
As dawn and darkness meet in soft embrace

He walks as one enchanted beneath the trees,
Knowing not whither, yet his vision sees

Beyond, and ever beyond some phantom thing
Toward which he wanders, groping in the air,
With hands outstretched in passionate despair,
He follows evermore the summoning

Thro' wood he passes moving as a fawn
Like an incarnate spirit of the dawn.

O'er hill and emerald vale he comes at last
Beside a silvery stream, whose banks are grown
With myriads of blue iris overblown
And passion-flowers with all their splendor past.

The boughs above embower him from the sky—
He kneels, entranced, as if about to die …

Trembling with dream ineffable, his eyes
Gaze downward in the water's emulous deep,
Where looking up, as if from starry sleep,
A lovely boy smiles amorous surprise.

Golden as dawn and shot with shimmering light,
His breast is as a lily in the night…

He stoops possessed of sudden, keen desire,—
Those lips have been his quest for many years,
This throat whose loveliness would waken tears—
This girlish face mirrored with tender fire…

Shuddering with joy he bends to clasp his love,
While wooing-notes of robins float above.

Lips upon lips, and meeting breast to breast,
He lies face downward, cleaved at last, and whole,
Twain with his dream and silent soul to soul—
In sweet cessation of the ageless quest.

His sinuous body shivers with excess
Of love's intolerable loveliness.

Consumed as if in some translucent cup,
Mouth merged with mouth in one ineffable kiss
He swoons with incommensurable bliss,
While swelling waters gently suck him up.

The sun veers in a diadem of rose,—
Deeply he drains a rapturous repose…

Drawn by the dream-lips of a golden boy,
Lead by a vision to the brink of death,
He sinks respiring beauty as a breath
Upon love's immemorial bier of joy.