The Image Seller

I would bring them again unto you, The gods with broad and placid brows; And for you have I wrought their images Of carven ivory and gold; That your lips may be shaped to praise them, And your praises be laughter and all delights of the body, Dancing and exultation, a dance of torches In scarlet sandals, with burnished targes: A dance of boys by the wine-press Naked, with must-stained purple thighs: Of young girls by the river in saffron vesture Dancing to smitten strings and reed flutes. Praise then mine images: Helios; Artemis, With a leash of straining hounds: and the Foam-born.

Turning from love to sleep, drowsy and smiling, With the fluttering of doves and dreams about her And, softer than silk, Hephaistos' golden net. Lo, Bacchus and his painted beasts! Praise ye mine images! A dryad whom clinging ivy holds while laughs The swarthy centaur pursuing; and a troop Of small Pans delicate and deformed. Yet your lips praise not, Crying: We too would be deathless as these are, We, the hunted! But dance and adore them, Praise my sweet grave gods of the blue, and the earth-born! Praise their strong grace and swiftness! For in these gods mine hands have wrought, In these alone are ye deathless.