Classic Poem

In places the water had thumbed the thick sunglow to patches
Of oil bloom, peacock flare, adroit black bronze;
And I was a diver, slime-silkened, hot with hot gold scratches
Of hammered glitter, slipping from hammered bastions
Down under dense foam slaver, down under tons
Of weed trash, polyp, down to the cool uncluttered deep sea garrisons.

There I blundered through smoke of dim turquoise, corroded old
Quinquiremes and galleons and Chinese
Junks and swan ships of Egypt crazy with gold;
Every vessel that had ever brawled with the seas;
Green wrecks, and there went out a glittering vapour from these;
And blunt inquisitive fishes vexed their beauty with vacant solemnities.

Tiberius, I tell you it would have seriously pleased your flesh,
It would have curiously delighted the bone of your thighs
To go under as I did, pulled through a shimmering mesh
Of sun-maddened water, bumping fish with enormous eyes;
You would leave your slim dancers, your gleaming women with cries
To go under as I did, sliding down a sleek-shouldered dream, not otherwise.