ANTINOUS

Kaarlo Sarkia(1902-1945)

Antinous from the mattresses of the galley,

which purple-attired slaves rowed,

with indecipherable boy's eyes,

with the smile of the sphinx on his boy's slips rose.

A watch of statues by the rail

him in their sphere as a peer enclosed.

From godfire, from high art's forge

must have he departed, not from the dust of the earth!

Beneath him swayed the awakening Nile,

mother of art and the grandest power -

that stream which had Egypt created,

in the blaze of the dawn shimmered like blood and cinder.

O him, whose lot is godhood!

What yearned, when the day of eve died,

what thirsted, when darted the arrow of morning,

whose already was the land and its splendour?

What whit from the hand of Life

he today in vain awaited?

Who was the lord of the world's master,

what can one get, he had received.

For his sake only awakened the fragrance, the light,

the fish the sea and the birds the air swam.

For his sake broadened existence

and radiated beauty's fire.

What dreamed in Egypt's morning,

when from behind a cloud flaming

saw the golden shield of the day gleaming,

Antinous, the most lovely of the created?

Leaned to the cedar plank of his ship's rail

he in the fever of kingship dreams:

From the peaks of the earth, from banquets of beauty

the godborn step directly into the grave

with sleep's fragrant wreath on their brow,

before the door of youth closes.

Like torches burn the crowns of lotuses,

they slumber into the billow's purple...

And he his cloak gold-woven,

which in half the lovely body covered,

to the alabaster slabs of the deck cast

the fairest of the statues revealing.

Earth before Beauty bent.

The flame of the sun was blazing.

The most insoluble smile on his lips

Antinous slid into Nile's water...

(Antinous; Velka elämälle(Porvoo: WSOY 1931), pages 63-65.]

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