Archaic Torso of Apollo

Not to be known, the inconceivable

Head that the eyes ripened in. Yet the torso

Is like a branching gas-lamp, glowing still,

In which his gaze, no more than turned down low,

Burns on, gleams. Else it could not dazzle so,

The curved swell of the chest; nor could there be

In the slight twist of the loins a smile that goes

Toward the fulcrum that was potency.

Else the stone would appear disfigured, lopped,

Beneath the shoulders’ lucid plunge and rush

And would not glisten like a wild beast’s pelt;

And would not from its proper contours thus

Break like a star: for there is nowhere safe

From being seen here. You must change your life.

‘Say, poet, what it is you do’