— 10 —
That love they lived as a religion
Offered to gods that do to presence bend.
Sometimes he was adorned and made to don
Half-costumes, now a posing nudity
That imitates some god's eternity
Of body statue-known to craving men.
Now was he Venus, risen from the seas;
And now was he Apollo, white and golden;
Now as Jove sate he in mock-judgment over
The presence at his feet of his slaved lover;
Now was he an acted rite, by one beholden,
In ever-repositioned mysteries.
Now he is something anyone can be.
O white negation of the thing it is!
O golden-haired moon-cold loveliness!
Too cold! too cold! and love as cold as he.
Love wanders through the memories of his vice
As through a labyrinth, in sad madness glad,
And now calls on his name and bids him rise,
And now is smiling at his imaged coming
That is i'th'heart like faces in the gloaming--
Mere shining shadows of the forms they had.
The rain again like a vague pain arose
And put the sense of wetness in the air.
Suddenly did the Emperor suppose
He saw this room and all in it from far.
He saw the couch, the boy and his own frame
Cast down against the couch, and he became
A clearer presence to himself, and said
These words unuttered, save to his soul's dread:
«I shall build thee a statue that will be
To the astonished future evidence
Of my love and thy beauty and the sense
That beauty giveth of infinity,
