Apollonian Loveliness in the Lands of Eos, Trailing Robes
“He would delight his heart while gazing on
Their men,” those ancients, the Ionians,
This visitor to Delos. God-like brawn
Made sons that later Macedonians
Would urgently have coveted if they
Had seen them centuries before. These young
Ones and their “modest mothers” on display
There on Apollo’s island caused the tongue
Of poetry to praise them. Older strains
Of beauty in the east, not mainland Greece,
Produced the songs of Sappho and the veins
Of verses from Alcaeus. In the peace
Described in this one poem, men’s long clothes
Trailed back behind them as they broached their oaths.