the rosy youth that was I

the rosy youth that was I
took coffee in the library
conversing with young ladies walking by
thinking if he hopped he'd fly...
oh that youth that was I

he walked miles a day
and made gentle love in the hay
again and again only to begin...
nature's joke on other men
who'd expend and nothing then,
and few could in fair form compare
below a visage that lured
proud beauties to stare

but in truth, this perfection
it did stop there...
so much so that ladies came
but few lingered there
where cannabis or irish whisky
hung in the morning air
over battle arrangements
of books from Hamlet to Dharma Bums,
and the mirror received
long and respectful stares
to confirm two sea-blue diamonds
still gazed back from there

sometimes he'd take to tennis:
at this he was not bad,
but the wins he would remember
and not if he'd been had.
see, he was a rather silly
most human sort of lad,
though he was sighted fondling trees
and some gossip had him mad

in verse he had a gift
but wrote not great for that,
for rhyme was out of style
and he disdained it with a smile
to write unrestrained on subjects blushing wild
only to on occasion
with craftful modesty be defiled

the rosy youth that was I
took coffee in the library
sighting young ladies walking by
thinking if he hopped he'd fly...
oh that youth that was I

this young man
soon travelled asiatic
and by chance ate a poison dramatic...
and never again
would he shame other men
or rush toward the net
a point-hungry lion.
Now he walks with a shuffle
down the stairs some slight trouble,
and scarce troubles the mirror
to hack at his stubble...
oh, but when he writes verse
rhymes polish allusions diverse
and labyrinthian trouble's spent
on the poet's curse
of lust for strangers' praise
and the oblivious gold
of a famous corpse
well reviewed by spectacled mold

and the sweet strange youth:
he's a skeleton already
buried and banished
to Eden's too sweet memory,
and yet his blonde-locked ghost
walks the lines of limestone
bestowing his brief life's blossoms
upon the polished marble words
that summon the spirits
that tread his more primal earth...
to give his stymied passion
an Orpheus-blessed birth