Explore "The Bather" by Bliss Carman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I saw him go down to the water to bathe; / He stood naked upon the bank.
His breast was like a white cloud in the heaven, / that catches the sun; / It swelled with the sharp joy of the air.
His legs rose with the spring and curve of young birches; / The hollow of his back caught the blue shadows:
With his head thrown up to the lips of the wind; / And the curls of his forehead astir with the wind.
I would that I were a man, they are so beautiful; / Their bodies are like the bows of the Indians; / They have the spring and the grace of bows of hickory.
I know that women are beautiful, and that I am beautiful; / But the beauty of a man is so lithe and alive and triumphant, / Swift as the night of a swallow and sure as the / pounce of the eagle.