I
She wanders floral pastures, through shadows
that mottle shivering meadows, damp
her sandaled foot and radiant ankles, calves
like ripened peaches, eyes cast downward,
rarely sunward. O Corinna, cry the swains
that pine in perpetual pang of love,
that steep their palms in lust, that of
desire are never purged, that pluck
languorously the strings of lutes
or breathe but faintly into flutes
and make sad music of hard luck.
She moves in ways that scream to the eye
and punish the groin, her swollen skirt
sways with flesh's opulence, slides
in maddening shifts and moves
in clefts, on supple cloves.
Eyes fat with unappeased desire
swell after her, crying, Corinna, Corinna.
II.
On florid hills we lean on elbows, breathe
despairingly, one leg up, one slack.
That ceaseless baaing becomes nearly unheard,
taken so much for granted, like the sound
of one's own breathing. Birds
flit among branches of trees whose names
we would be happy to forget; the good dogs
keep the straggling fluffs in line. We scan
the skies for gods: their meteoric descent
from azure, heels afire, pinions pressed
flat against bodies of supernal sinew,
unnaturally shapen. We, in awe
and unadulterated envy, mourn
our common and unchanging flesh,
our merely expedient organs of generation.
O Corinna, we observe you, we poor Clouts,
we pale insipid-faced personae, we
slack-jawed bucolic bachelors, goat-scented
experts of the Petrarchan sonnet. Step
to us once, stream-wet, charitably bend
in front of us with pendant breast, be wanton,
like Cynthia with her rapt Endymion,
and let our cloying, classic thirst be quenched
before the Olympian ravishers divert you
with startling metamorphoses, strange shapes
of potent and exotic beauty. Stay,
and turn Tradition on its ear, balk Custom:
There are too many poets in the world.
She wanders floral pastures, through shadows
that mottle shivering meadows, damp
her sandaled foot and radiant ankles, calves
like ripened peaches, eyes cast downward,
rarely sunward. O Corinna, cry the swains
that pine in perpetual pang of love,
that steep their palms in lust, that of
desire are never purged, that pluck
languorously the strings of lutes
or breathe but faintly into flutes
and make sad music of hard luck.
She moves in ways that scream to the eye
and punish the groin, her swollen skirt
sways with flesh's opulence, slides
in maddening shifts and moves
in clefts, on supple cloves.
Eyes fat with unappeased desire
swell after her, crying, Corinna, Corinna.
II.
On florid hills we lean on elbows, breathe
despairingly, one leg up, one slack.
That ceaseless baaing becomes nearly unheard,
taken so much for granted, like the sound
of one's own breathing. Birds
flit among branches of trees whose names
we would be happy to forget; the good dogs
keep the straggling fluffs in line. We scan
the skies for gods: their meteoric descent
from azure, heels afire, pinions pressed
flat against bodies of supernal sinew,
unnaturally shapen. We, in awe
and unadulterated envy, mourn
our common and unchanging flesh,
our merely expedient organs of generation.
O Corinna, we observe you, we poor Clouts,
we pale insipid-faced personae, we
slack-jawed bucolic bachelors, goat-scented
experts of the Petrarchan sonnet. Step
to us once, stream-wet, charitably bend
in front of us with pendant breast, be wanton,
like Cynthia with her rapt Endymion,
and let our cloying, classic thirst be quenched
before the Olympian ravishers divert you
with startling metamorphoses, strange shapes
of potent and exotic beauty. Stay,
and turn Tradition on its ear, balk Custom:
There are too many poets in the world.
