There was a pool of perfect water. No shepherd had ever driven sheep - To trample the margins. No cattle Had slobbered their muzzles in it And befouled it. No wild beast Had ever dashed through it. No bird had ever paddled there preening and bathing. Only surrounding grasses drank its moisture And though the arching trees kept it cool No twigs rotted in it, and no leaves.

Weary with hunting and the hot sun Narcissus found this pool. Gratefully he stretched out full length, To cup his hands in the clear cold And to drink. But as he drank A strange new thirst, a craving, unfamiliar, Entered his body with the water, And entered his eyes With the reflection in the limpid mirror. He could not believe the beauty Of those eyes that gazed into his own. As the taste of water flooded him So did love. So he lay, mistaking That picture of himself on the meniscus For the stranger who could make him happy.

He lay, like a fallen garden statue, Gaze fixed on his image in the water, Comparing it to Bacchus or Apollo, Falling deeper and deeper in love With what so many had loved so hopelessly. Not recognising himself He wanted only himself. He had chosen from all the faces he had ever seen Only his own. He was himself The torturer who now began his torture.

He plunged his arms deep to embrace One who vanished in agitated water. Again and again he kissed The lips that seemed to be rising to kiss his But dissolved, as he touched them, Into a soft splash and a shiver of ripples. How could he clasp and caress his own reflection? And still he could not comprehend What the deception was, what the delusion. He simply became more excited by it. Poor misguided boy! Why clutch so vainly At such a brittle figment? What you hope To lay hold of has no existence. Look away and what you love is nowhere. This is your own shadow. It comes with you. While you stay it stays. So it will go When you go -- if ever you can go.

He could not go. He wanted neither to eat nor to sleep. Only to lie there -- eyes insatiably Gazing into the eyes that were no eyes. This is how his own eyes destroyed him.

He sat up, and lifting his arms Called to the forest: 'You trees, Was there ever a love As cruel as mine is to me? You aged voyeurs, you eavesdroppers, Among all the lovers who have hidden Under your listening leaves Was there ever a love As futureless as mine? What I love is untouchable. We are kept apart

Neither by seas nor mountains Nor the locked-up gates of cities. Nothing at all comes between us Only the skin of water. He wants my love as I want his. As I lean to kiss him He lifts up his face to kiss me Why can't I reach him? Why can't he reach me? In that very touch of the kiss We vanish from each other -- he vanishes Into the skin of water.

'Who are you? Come out. Come up Onto the land. I never saw beauty To compare with yours. Oh why do you always Dodge away at the last moment And leave me with my arms full of nothing But water and the memory of an image. It cannot be my ugliness Or my age that repels you, If all the nymphs are so crazy about me. Your face is full of love As your eyes look into my eyes I see it, and my hope shakes me. I stretch my arms to you, you stretch yours As eagerly to me. You laugh when I laugh. I have watched your tears through my tears. When I tell you my love I see your lips Seeming to tell me yours -- though I cannot hear it.

'You are me. Now I see that. I see through my own reflection. But it is too late. I am in love with myself. I torture myself. What am I doing Loving or being loved? What can my courtship gain? What I want, I am. But being all that I long for -- That is my destitution. Why can't I get apart from my body? This is a new kind of lover's prayer. To wish himself apart from the one he loves.

'This impotent grief Is taking my strength And my life. My beauty is in full bloom But I am a cut flower. Let death come quickly Carry me off Where this pain Can never follow. The one I loved should be let live He should live on after me, blameless. But when I go -- both go.'

Then Narcissus wept into the pool. His tears shattered the still shrine And his image blurred. He cried after it: 'Don't leave me. If I cannot touch you at least let me see you. Let me nourish my starving, luckless love -- If only by looking.' Then he ripped off his shirt, And beat his bare chest with white fists.

The skin flushed under the blows. When Narcissus saw this In the image returned to perfection Where the pool had calmed It was too much for him. Like wax near the flame, Or like hoar-frost Where the first ray of the morning sun Creeps across it, He melted -- consumed By his love. Like Echo's the petal of his beauty Faded, shrivelled, fell He disappeared from his own eyes. Till nothing remained of the body That had driven Echo to distraction.