The Fall of Narcissus

For Steven.

On a hot summer day in the shade of some trees
a young man found refuge and fell to his knees
to drink the sweet water of a cool mountain spring
for in the burning heat there was no greater thing.

And yet it could not now quench his desire
as he drank his eyes strayed and his heart soon caught fire.
But his hope and his mind were equally vain-
this shadow of substance was not love but pain.

It was an image of beauty at which he now gazed
that held him enraptured, bemused and amazed.
Still as a statue he sat and he stared-
his heart and his hunger before him were bared.

The amorous youth did not see he was cheated,
his ardour did nothing but make him conceited;
for mirrors at best are a whimsical friend-
even the faithful and true they can bend.

A skin alike marble is still cold as a stone,
an ivory neck is most akin to dead bone,
and locks like a god's may be golden and fair
but when reason has spoken in the end it's just hair.

Red lips like a rosebud shall wilt and shall fade,
and cheeks soft as silk Time shall wrinkle and jade.
Beauty is hollow, it is naught but a shell;
a pompous presence for old age quickly to quell.

Thus blindly the youth worshiped his watery twin
while his lust now consumed him outside and within
until all he could do was to gibber and drool
like a doddering dotard- it proved him a fool.

So get off on your likeness- you do it so well.
Be always enchanted with your own swanky spell;
but darling, oh darling, remember you this-
you're not all that pretty, you're really a priss.