Though you yourself seem deathless and divine,
Like all things–fleeting–you, the wind, allay.
What wonder then that you were undefined?
A passing season in another's day.
   I saw you with him, ancient evidence,
   And who would not be jealous should they lose
   That beauty of surpassing eminence?
   But you were not the one that he would choose.
And then, we have no clue of where you went.
Why should we when your nature is to turn,
To change, to bring to life the soil's intent,
Then dissipate when Summer comes to burn.
   You evanescently immortal one,
   Outliving us, you fly when Spring is done.

The Western wind had loved the Spartan prince.
He used to course throughout his curly hair,
And had been once enjoyed by Hyacinth;
But his true love would be Apollo fair.
   You whistler of the Spring, your loss is great,
   Beloved for your breeze that clothes the plains.
   Alas that Love should deign another fate,
   And shine the brightest light upon your pain.
Your coming sprouts the many crops and fruits,
But you would have one flower if you could–
That rarest blossom for your want acute–
Instead it's with the Sun god that he stood.
   And off they ran to Summer when he shined,
   In deeply-nighted Winter they reclined.

I know that we will meet again my dear,
Sweet Hyacinthus. I will sing a song
Forever, and the world will lend an ear;
To hear how Fate has done a fellow wrong.
   They'll hear I taught you every skill and art;
   Your favorite, which you had surpassed me in,
   Was music. And your singing was the start,
   The cycle of your songs the springtime's din.
Those songs resound no longer. You are dead,
And only I am left to turn the wheel.
It wasn't fair, I need you, but the tread
Of overwriting time brings death to heel.
   Myth shall restore you in your season then;
   To Hyperborea we'll go again.

He came to me beneath the harvest rains,
Most beautiful and most afflicted face;
When his enchantingness was not constrained
By frost a moment more, my day had place.
   The sunlight found its truest warmth in him,
   And in our season flourished love and song.
   But now the days are shorter, cold, and dim;
   I shrink away, and all creation longs.
I'll never see his face again, will I?
Beyond the realm of life my love's been snatched;
No godly healing arts did I not try,
But death among all things is never matched.
   If only I could nevermore return,
   Instead I will remember, wane, and yearn. 

These hands that wrought the lyre, that serpents fear,
What twisted work have you now wrought today?
They made that discus, now must make the bier;
My prince of flowers on the clearing lay.
   My victories dissolved on horror's floor,
   Is this defeat beneath the master, Fate?
   In contrapposto for a second more,
   His temple shattered by a searing plate.
Watch this, he said, but then it ricocheted.
The blood ejaculated from the wound.
Gore painting flowers, he could not be saved.
I felt a desperate death-lust in the swoon.
   My being obsoleted by a toss,
   Why ever live if live to feel this loss?

Two youths enjoying mutual desire,
Exemplifying mortal mysteries
Of passion, the encumbrance of entire
Millennia of solemn histories.
   The first resplendent with a godlike touch,
   The warmth creation radiates distilled
   Into the one supernal artist, such
   That when they joined all art was love fulfilled.
The other: blossom boy and objet d'art,
Himself alive in the idyllic scheme
Of man and beauty yet to be apart.
A fragile visitor that made gods keen.
   The flower's beauty–that which knows and crowns 
   Its elegance must also lay it down.

Pure beauty was the love of that young boy,
For fine-tuned song, an orison of grace,
The seasons' several blooms, the sense, the joy
Of man in subjects that hold beauty's trace.
   Naïvely and innately did he taste
   The latent miracles creation births
   And praised them with his care and earnest faith,
   Perceiving everything's partaking worth.
His supple limbs untouched by doubt or age,
How many days we sported head to head
Or arm in arm made love and song, a sage
Embodied in a kritios's bed.
   The Feminine divine throughout his way;
   The Masculine refined without decay.

It was Apollo Hyacinthus loved,
And never happier was he than when
Before his horses carried him above,
They sang together in the dewy glen.
   His chariot and circling fire were great,
   Yet for the sacrifice he made it seemed
   There wasn't anything to obligate
   Him, loving naturally as he dreamed.
And in his day the boy knew love from him,
That product Beauty stoops to proffer men.
Their joy was effortless, was grace and whim;
If man could be love he had learned it then.
   He must have had what many die to find.
   Poor Hyacinthus! Down the disk declined.

In poppies sleeps the bard eternally.
Now what remains? Can we then estimate?
His incantations still are heard, and see,
Believing souls in these still conflagrate!
   The tender fierceness of a passion fleshed
   In loving, conquering, confusing need;
   He sang of sticky heats of love where threshed
   Are youthful souls by evanescent deeds.
The lovers crossed and crossing on their way
Who always say goodbye are with him there:
We transients. We see undone the play
Of prisoners we are, dissolved in care.
   He sleeps in poppies, carried on the wind;
   I ride with them atop Oblivion.