"Capture youth as youth retains
Its place"
Thought the painter as he looked
Upon his face
To taste all wondrous gift ...
Save no expense
My feet to take all paths ...
Filled rich incense
To breathe the pleasures of the earth ...
Discarding nothing
His pa**ion he gave to an actress
Played Imogen and Juliet,
She was perfect
Silk thread curls on cool white
Ivory skin
A goddess so distant had enraptured him
The love that I found on theatre's
Stage is dead
This prince so charming leads my
Heart instead
But no, to me you are the loves
You've played
If fantasy is dead, the age decays
Parting poison make up falling
Tears like rain
The wilting helpless snowflake melts
Inside its grave
Reflected conscience slips away
Away, away
A dream of form in days of thought
My lost creation rich restored
We'll paint your form with every
Care and grace
You are perfect in every thing
As a flower blooms in spring
Releasing madness from within
Beneath this work our very souls do hide
Me of my brush, you of your youth
Are tied to canvas forever
Fading never
But evil thoughts turn into twisted life
Resounding through his years
And the portrait sits and now those
Scarlet lips have suffered changes
Does my eye speak the truth, my
Wondrous youth
No winter marred his face or stained
The flower-like bloom
Of his skin through summer's vine
But wine like fragrance it fades
And it dies
He gazed in the gla** and sighed, his
Thoughts drifted by
How I wish that I could steal my youth
And the picture base the age uncouth
(Peter Pan on rooftops dancing ever
Soaked in youth
Adonis plays innocence in
Unrevealed truth)
My soul to art I did then betroth
My body left alive unmoved
I can stay youthful for all my life
And the picture I'll keep from the
World's peering eyes
My sins it will hold, its face
Will grow old
And all the people will know not
Why my face is young till the day
That I die
The gates if the seasons they
Open and close
And the pathways perfection a
Faltered repose
An age elf slips free ascending this tree
He sneaks up with ease outstretched
Arms reaching high
So small but so vital his glistening smile
The face as with fever is stricken
A red bead of dew sickly thickens
Scorching his eyesight the charred
Wrinkled skin
His mirror of conscience that
Burdens the sins
"Heaven, helpless, drowned confusion"
A satyr looks down
From the frame, illusion
The blade shines brightly it fills his
Fingers with hate
A veil of darkness descends it bends
To his feet
A life of lust, mistrust decreasing
Visions varnished, stripped unseen
Does the eye speak the truth, his
Wondrous youth