Springtime: the eye once, scaling alps of blossom
might have traced in curdling cloud the foolproof shine
of a god's descent, a god's claws lifting the lissom
sweetness of mortal youth from sure decline--

the Phrtgian mode. Light poking past his nose
compelled Professor Eisenbart to witness
spring's lyric conquest of his room. He rose,
thought of his mistress and her tiresome sweetness,

and turning from his work to earth's green text
by flowers' sharp asterisks found himelf drawn
to footnotes of unwelcome longing, vexed
to see below him on the hotel lawn

the cause of his unrest: a boy whose wealth
of beauty, gathered now beneath the tragic
green of a cypress, had seduced by stealth
since their first meeting, Eisenbart from his magic

formulae. Descending by the stairs
(he feared the lift's steel cage), passing a room
where idle women nursed their lapdog cares,
he reached the formal garden, with its gloom

of cypress and tormented hedge enfolding
the boy's still-life repose. And if the women
saw them ascend the stairs, Eisenbart holding
the boy's hand in his own, it was human

fabric that drew their sighs: youth's gold warp threading
its joy through darker woof. His rented heaven
enclosed them both at last. Eisenbart treading
the orbit of his hope felt a warm leaven

lighten his bones, nerves, arteries; expand
the burden of his breath until he choked
and tasted his own panic, shocked, unmanned:
smiling assent that could not be revoked

the boy, bred in the slippery city, stared
with childhood's cunning at a future come
too soon. His graceful ivory body, bared,
spoke of itself alone. Corruption, dumb,

winked, a sour beggar, through his perfect eyes
miming its own deceit in flesh and feature.
Eisenbart, who might upon that prize
have dropped as the hawk swoops to serve its nature,

felt, softer than snow on water or on snow,
a winter's delicate absences reclaim him.
Ganymede, with cruel mockery, chose to go.
Eisenbart took his pen; let sunset frame him

a city fringed with water and cold light,
restless with growing life; and turned to live,
to work in his own world, where symbols might
speak to him in their sublime affirmative.