ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

I want to go back, back to my New Orleans
This place that I call New Orleans is actually Louisiana
But still, the gorgeousness of this dirt and grime
The live oaks stretching over the 6-lane wide streets,
Touching leaftips, making a canopy over the passerbys
Crepe myrtles showering streets with lacy pink faerie dresses
Smells of beignets and seafood fill the French Quarter
Intense, consuming, warm, loving sun burning through your shirt
In New Orleans to say horses sweat, men perspire and women glow
is to be ridiculous.
In New Orleans everyone sweats like pigs.
As for the grime I mentioned, this exists mainly in
the sidewalks cracked by live oaks which make an adventure of every walk down the street
And in any semi-deserted street
To have a Mardi Gras or St. Patrick's Day without a parade and citywide party is to toss aside traditions and the New Orleanian way
The New Orleanians are welcoming, hearty and heartwarming, tough and unafraid to talk to a stranger on the streets.
An old black man once greeted me with 'konichiwa' as I walked past
A middle aged white man once struck up a conversation with us as he realised we had shared the same ferry earlier in the day
An old asian woman conversed familiarly with our family at Cafe Du Monde simply because we are Vietnamese as well
A teenaged white boy waved at us as we drove past him jogging
A different old black man stopped and serenaded my siblings, mother and me with his trumpet just because we smiled
Several young mothers and women have stopped my mother to gush  over my siblings and me, usually when we were very small
I, myself, have given directions to a tourist or two, lost near Cafe Du Monde or the levee,
And I hope that the warm smiling spirit of the Big Easy will remain forever immortal.

But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
Is not afraid, for never through the day
Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

But often from the thorny labyrinth
And tangled branches of the circling wood
The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth
Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love,—within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

Would almost leave the little meadow bare,
For it knows nothing of great pageantry,
Only a few narcissi here and there
Stand separate in sweet austerity,
Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was ****** of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had withered up those lilies white and red
Which, while the boy would through the forest range,
Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied
The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,
And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms
Crushing her ******* in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,
Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth
Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the crystalline
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crowned head,

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,
And a blue wave will be our canopy,
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl
In all their amethystine panoply
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,
And every morn a young and ruddy swain
Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain
By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;
But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store
Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore
At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had
Flown off in search of berried juniper
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy
For my poor lips, his joyous purity
And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean, brightest star
Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring
Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst
To myriad multitudinous blossoming
Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons
That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous
tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,
And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,
Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein
Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,

The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,
For round its rim great creamy lilies float
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat
Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid
To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,
One arm around her boyish paramour,
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen
The moon strip off her misty vestiture
For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid,
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,
Back to the boisterous billow let us go,
And walk all day beneath the hyaline
Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,
And watch the purple monsters of the deep
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

For if my mistress find me lying here
She will not ruth or gentle pity show,
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect!  O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,
And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

And where the little flowers of her breast
Just brake into their milky blossoming,
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,
Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,
And ploughed a ****** furrow with its dart,
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry
On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,
Sobbing for incomplete virginity,
And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,
And all the pain of things unsatisfied,
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing
side.

Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,
And very pitiful to see her die
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known
The joy of passion, that dread mystery
Which not to know is not to live at all,
And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,
Who with Adonis all night long had lain
Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom.

For as a gardener turning back his head
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows
With careless scythe too near some flower bed,
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,
And with the flower’s loosened loneliness
Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

Driving his little flock along the mead
Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide
Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,
Treads down their brimming golden chalices
Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book
Flings himself down upon the reedy grass
And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,
And for a time forgets the hour glass,
Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,
And lets the hot sun **** them, even go these lovers lay.

And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis
Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,
Or else that mightier maid whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should
pass.’

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky,
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the AEgean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips
Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips
And passed into the void, and Venus knew
That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest
With all the wonder of this history,
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest
Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky
On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

By: Nabs

    When I was little, my mother often gave me flowers.

She would make me a crown of Primroses that smells like the day my father left us.
I would smile and dance a little twirl that had her smiling fondly. Her little princess, Said she couldn't live with out me.
I believed her.

Right before my mother decided to stop breathing, she gave me a bouquet of Lily of the valley.

I never knew that apology was poisonous.

    The day I turned fifteen, my grandmother gave me a book on flowers, It was written with green ink and bound in human skin. Said that It was family heirloom. Said that the universe needed someone who understand Hana. Said that I was born to understand only them and to remember that flowers are ephemeral.

I cradled the book, feeling as if the world was spinning. Opening it feels like coming home after a long time of drowning.

By the time I realized, a bush of Basil and beds of Petunias were growing in my home like ****. The color should have been red instead of purple.

      I met you when you were giving a bundle of daisy to a boy.
The boy scoffed and slapped the daisies to the ground. It's petal were falling apart just as blue and black blooms like an eager bud on you. Your body were taut as a string but your face was smiling, the kind of smile I couldn't decipher the meaning.

I picked the daisies up and asked if i could keep it.  You said only if I gave you my name.

You were wreathed with White Hyacinth and Pine leaves. It suits you.

    You told me one day, after you gave me a Bleeding Heart, that I needed to learn more than the languages that flower speak. That I needed to learn human.
I asked to you why do you say that?
You looked at me, with a little smile and a soft look on your face. Told me that I was too oblivious, I was more flower than human. I frowned and said," That hurts".
You laughter was much more sweeter than any Honeysuckle.

Though I still didnt understand your laughter nor the bleeding heart.

    The sight of our hands lacing together, looks much more delicate than Queen Anne laces. It made me aware of the dips of your lips, how warm your callouses hands were and the way you sometimes darts to sneak a glance at me with warmth in your eyes when you thought I wasn't looking.
I would feel my heart thumping loudly and I would disentangle our hands, trying to hide the tremors in my hands. You would pursed your lips and cracked a joke.

The next day I received a bouquet of Lilacs and red Peonies. It was too beautiful and I was already withering.

    You often asked If I was ok. I said I was. You would go rigid at that and started to pull down all the blinds to your soul. But that day when I answered I was ok, you gave me an Orange mock.
Said that I can trust you. You left with out meeting my eyes.

That night, I left a single Aster on your window sill. Hoping I did the right thing.

    The thing was, I was scared. Not of you, no never of you. That I swear on White Lilies and Myrtles that we bound ourself to.
It's just, every time I'm with you I want to bare my self naked. To let you see how the parasites are growing inside me, withering me as it did my mother. My grandmother would say that it is our legacy we cannot escape. To grow and bloom then wither ourself after the peak.

My Grandmother was a Sakura tree, My Mother an Ajisai, and I was a Tsubaki.

My mother was supposed to lived longer than me. But Hydrangeas needed their rain or they'll wither away.

    You told me once, that I remind you of Wisterias. Always enduring even after the cruelest storm. I grimaced and whacked you on the back. Said that you were an idiot for thinking that. You laughed again and tickled me until I asked for mercy.

I feel less Tsubaki and more human with you.

    I never let you go to my home because I could not bear the thoughts of you seeing the lawn strewn Marigolds, the grief that latched itself to the soil.
How the yards was filled with weeds and plants that was tangling them self to choke each other. How the walls was bare and the furniture was only enough to survive. The only thing that was lending colors to my home were the branches of Plum Blossom and bouquet of Lilacs and Peonies that seems to not wither away.

This home would not hold further.

    I gave you Blue Carnations the night when vines were choking my lungs, making it hard for me to breathe.

You said they were beautiful, and smiled a serene smile. I wanted to kiss you so bad, but I was leaking clear salty sap, that was rolling down my cheeks. I told you all about Hana and all about my family. How bare my home is and how you are my Iris, my good news, my good tidings.

You hugged me, not minding the sap that's staining your shirt. I didn't see the Red Camellia you were tucking in my hair.

  The day when I almost gave you Red Daisies and Lungwort was the day I found out that you had severe allergy to flowers.
That breathing their pollen would shorten your life as the breath you took became a privilege that you were slowly losing.
I asked, "why would you endanger yourself like that?".
"I love flowers, that's all", you said with an uncaring shrug.
The thoughts of you withering away, made me nauseous.

I went home throwing away the Daisies and Lungwort, Burning down the marigolds and Petunias.

The only thing was left were Hana and the bouquet of Lilacs and Red Peonies.

  I never get to told you that my roots was withering.

  When you found me lying on my home, covered with Primroses, Camellias, and Blood Red Poppies, I know that you knew. In your hand were Peach Blossoms and they were so very beautiful.
You cradled me close to your chest. Whispering that I will be okay, that It's unfair for me to do this to him.
"I know", I rasped. My voice was barely working and Black-Red sap was steadily tricking from the corner of my lips.

  When I saw my mother walking down to me, carrying a basket full of Sweet Peas, Volkamenia, and Yarrows, I understand what your smile meant the first we met.

It was Red Camellias, Love and acceptence

Sermoni propriora.—Hor.

Low was our pretty Cot; our tallest Rose
Peep’d at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea’s faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom’d; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh’d the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa’s citizen: methought it calm’d
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus’d, and look’d
With a pleas’d sadness, and gaz’d all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz’d round again,
And sigh’d, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were bless’d. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark’s note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper’d tones
I’ve said to my Beloved, ‘Such, sweet Girl!
The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the Soul seeks to hear; when all is hush’d,
And the Heart listens!’
                                   But the time, when first
From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climb’d with perilous toil and reach’d the top.
Oh! what a goodly scene! the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And river, now with bushy rocks o’erbrow’d,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire;
The Channel, the Islands and white sails,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean—
It seem’d like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a Temple: the whole World
Seem’d in its vast circumference:
No profan’d my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury ,—to be!

  Ah! quiet Dell! dear Cot, and Mount sublime!
I was constrain’d to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumber’d brethren toil’d and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard’s eye
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
And he that works me good with unmov’d face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence
Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann’st
The sluggard Pity’s vision-weaving tribe!
Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tir’d mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,
And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes—sweet Abode!
Ah!—had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so—but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come!

I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
And with sick longing all the night outwear,
To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

IV.
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
"To morrow will I bow to my delight,
"To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon."--
"O may I never see another night,
"Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."--
So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

V.
Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
"How ill she is," said he, "I may not speak,
"And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
"If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
"And at the least 'twill startle off her cares."

VI.
So said he one fair morning, and all day
His heart beat awfully against his side;
And to his heart he inwardly did pray
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away--
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

VII.
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,
If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
"Lorenzo!"--here she ceas'd her timid quest,
But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII.
"O Isabella, I can half perceive
"That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
"If thou didst ever any thing believe,
"Believe how I love thee, believe how near
"My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
"Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
"Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
"Another night, and not my passion shrive.

IX.
"Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
"Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
"And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
"In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time."
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew, like a ***** flower in June's caress.

X.
Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
He with light steps went up a western hill,
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.

XI.
All close they met again, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
Ah! better had it been for ever so,
Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

XII.
Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII.
But, for the general award of love,
The little sweet doth **** much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV.
With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
And for them many a weary hand did swelt
In torched mines and noisy factories,
And many once proud-quiver'd ***** did melt
In blood from stinging whip;--with hollow eyes
Many all day in dazzling river stood,
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV.
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?--
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?--
Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?--
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

XVII.
Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,
The hawks of ship-mast forests--the untired
And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies--
Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,--
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

XVIII.
How was it these same ledger-men could spy
Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye
A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest
Into their vision covetous and sly!
How could these money-bags see east and west?--
Yet so they did--and every dealer fair
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX.
O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,
For venturing syllables that ill beseem
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

**.
Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
There is no other crime, no mad assail
To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
But it is done--succeed the verse or fail--
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

XXI.
These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs,
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,
When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII.
And many a jealous conference had they,
And many times they bit their lips alone,
Before they fix'd upon a surest way
To make the youngster for his crime atone;
And at the last, these men of cruel clay
Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
For they resolved in some forest dim
To **** Lorenzo, and there bury him.

XXIII.
So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
"You seem there in the quiet of content,
"Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
"Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
"Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
And went in haste, to get in readiness,
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.

XXV.
And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
If he could hear his lady's matin-song,
Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
And as he thus over his passion hung,
He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
When, looking up, he saw her features bright
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

XXVI.
"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
"Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:
"Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
"I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
"Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain
"Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
"Good bye! I'll soon be back."--"Good bye!" said she:--
And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.
So the two brothers and their ******'d man
Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love.--They pass'd the water
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.
They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's ****,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

***.
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring, "Where? O where?"

XXXI.
But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
Upon the time with feverish unrest--
Not long--for soon into her heart a throng
Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

XXXII.
In the mid days of autumn, on their eves
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the sick west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
To make all bare before he dares to stray
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
By gradual decay from beauty fell,

XXXIII.
Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;
And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,
To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

XXXIV.
And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

XXXV.
It was a vision.--In the drowsy gloom,
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears.

XXXVI.
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

XXXVII.
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
From the poor girl by magic of their light,
The while it did unthread the horrid woof
Of the late darken'd time,--the murderous spite
Of pride and avarice,--the dark pine roof
In the forest,--and the sodden turfed dell,
Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

XXXVIII.
Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!
"Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
"And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
"Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
"Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
"Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
"Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
"And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

XXXIX.
"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
"Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling
"Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
"While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
"And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
"And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
"Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
"And thou art distant in Humanity.

XL.
"I know what was, I feel full well what is,
"And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
"Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
"That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
"A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
"To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
"Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
"A greater love through all my essence steal."

XLI.
The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"--dissolv'd, and left
The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,
And in the dawn she started up awake;

XLII.
"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life,
"I thought the worst was simple misery;
"I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
"Portion'd us--happy days, or else to die;
"But there is crime--a brother's ****** knife!
"Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:
"I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
"And greet thee morn and even in the skies."

XLIII.
When the full morning came, she had devised
How she might secret to the forest hie;
How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
And sing to it one latest lullaby;
How her short absence might be unsurmised,
While she the inmost of the dream would try.
Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,
And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

XLIV.
See, as they creep along the river side,
How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
And, after looking round the champaign wide,
Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame
"Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide,
"That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came,
And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV.
Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
And filling it once more with human soul?
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

XLVI.
She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
Like to a native lily of the dell:
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII.
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her *****, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone
Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,
But to throw back at times her vei

(PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes—
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers, or the weeds,
Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn
Had net-worked with brown
The white skin of each grape on the bunches,
Marked like a quail’s crown,
Those creatures you make such account of,
Whose heads,—specked with white
Over brown like a great spider’s back,
As I told you last night,—
Your mother bites off for her supper;
Red-ripe as could be.
Pomegranates were chapping and splitting
In halves on the tree:
And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,
Or in the thick dust
On the path, or straight out of the rock side,
Wherever could ******
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower
Its yellow face up,
For the prize were great butterflies fighting,
Some five for one cup.
So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning,
What change was in store,
By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets
Which woke me before
I could open my shutter, made fast
With a bough and a stone,
And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs,
Sole lattice that’s known!
Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles,
While, busy beneath,
Your priest and his brother tugged at them,
The rain in their teeth:
And out upon all the flat house-roofs
Where split figs lay drying,
The girls took the frails under cover:
Nor use seemed in trying
To get out the boats and go fishing,
For, under the cliff,
Fierce the black water frothed o’er the blind-rock
No seeing our skiff
Arrive about noon from Amalfi,
—Our fisher arrive,
And pitch down his basket before us,
All trembling alive
With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit,
—You touch the strange lumps,
And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner
Of horns and of humps.
Which only the fisher looks grave at,
While round him like imps
Cling screaming the children as naked
And brown as his shrimps;
Himself too as bare to the middle—
—You see round his neck
The string and its brass coin suspended,
That saves him from wreck.
But today not a boat reached Salerno,
So back to a man
Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest began:
In the vat, half-way up in our house-side,
Like blood the juice spins,
While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins
Dead-beaten, in effort on effort
To keep the grapes under,
Since still when he seems all but master,
In pours the fresh plunder
From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder,
And eyes shut against the rain’s driving,
Your girls that are older,—
For under the hedges of aloe,
And where, on its bed
Of the orchard’s black mould, the love-apple
Lies pulpy and red,
All the young ones are kneeling and filling
Their laps with the snails
Tempted out by this first rainy weather,—
Your best of regales,
As tonight will be proved to my sorrow,
When, supping in state,
We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,
Three over one plate)
With lasagne so tempting to swallow
In slippery ropes,
And gourds fried in great purple slices,
That colour of popes.
Meantime, see the grape-bunch they’ve brought you,—
The rain-water slips
O’er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips
Still follows with fretful persistence—
Nay, taste, while awake,
This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,
That peels, flake by flake,
Like an onion’s, each smoother and whiter;
Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine,—
And end with the prickly-pear’s red flesh
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth
…Scirocco is loose!
Hark! the quick, whistling pelt of the olives
Which, thick in one’s track,
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,
Though not yet half black!
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder!
The medlars let fall
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees
Snap off, figs and all,—
For here comes the whole of the tempest
No refuge, but creep
Back again to my side and my shoulder,
And listen or sleep.

O how will your country show next week
When all the vine-boughs
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture
The mules and the cows?
Last eve, I rode over the mountains;
Your brother, my guide,
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles
That offered, each side,
Their fruit-*****, black, glossy and luscious,—
Or strip from the sorbs
A treasure, so rosy and wondrous,
Of hairy gold orbs!
But my mule picked his sure, sober path out,
Just stopping to neigh
When he recognized down in the valley
His mates on their way
With the *******, and barrels of water;
And soon we emerged
From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow
And still as we urged
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,
As up still we trudged
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,
And place was e’en grudged
’Mid the rock-chasms, and piles of loose stones
(Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster, which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath)
Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-****
That clung to the path,
And dark rosemary, ever a-dying,
That, ’spite the wind’s wrath,
So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,—
And lentisks as staunch
To the stone where they root and bear berries,—
And… what shows a branch
Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
Of pale seagreen leaves—
Over all trod my mule with the caution
Of gleaners o’er sheaves,
Still, foot after foot like a lady—
So, round after round,
He climbed to the top of Calvano,
And God’s own profound
Was above me, and round me the mountains,
And under, the sea,
And within me, my heart to bear witness
What was and shall be!
Oh Heaven, and the terrible crystal!
No rampart excludes
Your eye from the life to be lived
In the blue solitudes!
Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
Still moving with you—
For, ever some new head and breast of them
Thrusts into view
To observe the intruder—you see it
If quickly you turn
And, before they escape you, surprise them—
They grudge you should learn
How the soft plains they look on, lean over,
And love (they pretend)
-Cower beneath them; the flat sea-pine crouches
The wild fruit-trees bend,
E’en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut—
All is silent and grave—
’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty—
How fair, but a slave!
So, I turned to the sea,—and there slumbered
As greenly as ever
Those isles of the siren, your Galli;
No ages can sever
The Three, nor enable their sister
To join them,—half-way
On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses—
No farther today;
Though the small one, just launched in the wave,
Watches breast-high and steady
From under the rock, her bold sister
Swum half-way already.
Fortu, shall we sail there together
And see from the sides
Quite new rocks show their faces—new haunts
Where the siren abides?
Shall we sail round and round them, close over
The rocks, though unseen,
That ruffle the grey glassy water
To glorious green?
Then scramble from splinter to splinter,
Reach land and explore,
On the largest, the strange square black turret
With never a door,
Just a loop to admit the quick lizards;
Then, stand there and hear
The birds’ quiet singing, that tells us
What life is, so clear!
The secret they sang to Ulysses,
When, ages ago,
He heard and he knew this life’s secret,
I hear and I know!

Ah, see! The sun breaks o’er Calvano—
He strikes the great gloom
And flutters it o’er the mount’s summit
In airy gold fume!
All is over! Look out, see the gipsy,
Our tinker and smith,
Has arrived, set up bellows and forge,
And down-squatted forthwith
To his hammering, under the wall there;
One eye keeps aloof
The urchins that itch to be putting
His jews’-harps to proof,
While the other, through locks of curled wire,
Is watching how sleek
Shines the hog, come to share in the windfalls
—An abbot’s own cheek!
All is over! Wake up and come out now,
And down let us go,
And see the fine things got in order
At Church for the show
Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening;
Tomorrow’s the Feast
Of the Rosary’s ******, by no means
Of Virgins the least—
As you’ll hear in the off-hand discourse
Which (all nature, no art)
The Dominican brother, these three weeks,
Was getting by heart.
Not a post nor a pillar but’s dizened
With red and blue papers;
All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar
A-blaze with long tapers;
But the great masterpiece is the scaffold
Rigged glorious to hold
All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers
And trumpeters bold,
Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber,
Who, when the priest’s hoarse,
Will strike us up something that’s brisk
For the feast’s second course.
And then will the flaxen-wigged Image
Be carried in pomp
Through the plain, while in gallant procession
The priests mean to stomp.
And all round the glad church lie old bottles
With gunpowder stopped,
Which will be, when the Image re-enters,
Religiously popped.
And at night from the crest of Calvano
Great bonfires will hang,
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,
And more poppers bang!
At all events, come—to the garden,
As far as the wall,
See me tap with a *** on the plaster
Till out there shall fall
A scorpion with wide angry nippers!

…”Such trifles”—you say?
Fortu, in my England at home,
Men meet gravely today
And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws
Is righteous and wise
—If ’tis proper, Scirocco should vanish
In black from the skies!

In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned  in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy,
then in their height.


Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
         Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
         For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
         But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.
         Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
RHad ye been there,S . . . for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
         Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. RBut not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
RFame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.”
         O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea,
That came in Neptune’s plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
         Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, Rmy dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain.
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:—
RHow well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as, for their bellies’ sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped:
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
         Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf **** the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the ***** freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise,
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
         Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That Sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
         Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms." - Milton

WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's **** and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night -
Both together: - let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.

Thank Heaven! the crisis—
  The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
  Is over at last—
And the fever called “Living”
  Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know,
  I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
  As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
  I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
  Now in my bed,
That any beholder
  Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me
  Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,
  The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
  With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah, that horrible,
  Horrible throbbing!

The sickness—the nausea—
  The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
  That maddened my brain—
With the fever called “Living”
  That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures
  That torture the worst
Has abated—the terrible
  Torture of thirst,
For the naphthaline river
  Of Passion accurst:—
I have drank of a water
  That quenches all thirst:—

Of a water that flows,
  With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
  Feet under ground—
From a cavern not very far
  Down under ground.

And ah! let it never
  Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
  And narrow my bed—
For man never slept
  In a different bed;
And, to sleep, you must slumber
  In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit
  Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
  Regretting its roses—
Its old agitations
  Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly
  Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
  About it, of pansies—
A rosemary odor,
  Commingled with pansies—
With rue and the beautiful
  Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,
  Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
  And the beauty of Annie—
Drowned in a bath
  Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,
  She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
  To sleep on her breast—
Deeply to sleep
  From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
  She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
  To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
  To shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,
  Now in my bed
(Knowing her love)
  That you fancy me dead—
And I rest so contentedly,
  Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
  That you fancy me dead—
That you shudder to look at me.
  Thinking me dead.

But my heart it is brighter
  Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
  For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
  Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
  Of the eyes of my Annie.

When first we moved on into the house
They said that we wouldn’t last,
The locals told us nobody had
Of the many who’d left in the past.
We asked if the house was haunted, but
They said that it’s not, ‘It’s cool!’
The reason nobody stayed, they said,
Was the serpent that lived in the pool.

The ‘pool’ it seemed was the small lagoon
That was not so far from the house,
‘You’ll notice that there’s never a rat,
You’ll not see a single mouse!’
It seems the serpent came out at night
And fed on the rodents there,
‘You’d better keep all the windows shut,
And jam the doors with a chair.’

We settled in and we laughed at that,
‘They must believe I’m a fool!
I haven’t found anyone out there yet
Who has seen this thing in the pool.
It’s only a superstition, something
Handed down from the past,
They love to shiver and peddle gloom
In the hopes we’ll be aghast.’

We sauntered down and we took it in,
The water was calm and still,
And willows, myrtles and evergreens
Were set in this sweet idyll,
‘I think that I’m going to love it here,
It’s peaceful and quiet,’ said Cass,
I didn’t mention the snaking trail
That I’d noticed, deep in the grass.

She questioned me when I barred the doors,
And shut all the windows tight,
‘You’re not afraid of the serpent, Jack?’
She laughed, and I said ‘Not quite!
There’s gnats about in the midnight air
And I don’t want them in here.’
She laughed again, ‘That’s a good excuse,
I’m sure to believe you, dear!’

Cass would sleep like a log each night,
Would sleep ‘til the break of day,
But I would wake to the slightest scrape,
To a Hoot-Owl, hunting its prey.
I heard a sound on the patio
Like something slithering there,
A tapping sound on the window pane
And the movement of a chair.

It got to the point I couldn’t sleep,
I’d lie there, listening,
Awake to the slightest sound out there,
The barest rustling,
I’d keep a shovel beside the door
Get up, and sit in fright,
Holding my breath, and waiting for
Its visit, every night.

I opened the door one moonless night
And the monster slithered in,
A forked tongue flickering out in front
And cold eyes full of sin,
I slammed the shovel down on its neck
And the head just fell away,
While the rest just coiled through the open door
And the blood came out in a spray.

I must have got it all over me
So I should have washed my hands,
But somehow, some of the serpent’s blood
Got over the pots and pans,
I dumped the body out in the woods
Hid deep in the winter grass,
Then cooked a breakfast fit for a Queen
For the love of my lady, Cass.

I should have known about serpent’s blood
I should have been more than wise,
For Voodoo tells us that serpent’s blood
Will make you grow snakes inside,
So Cass came down with a fever then
And she moaned and cried, ‘Enough!’
She said, ‘There’s something a-move in there,
That’s slithering round my gut.’

I tended her for a week or more
Put a cold compress on her brow,
Trying to get her fever down,
I wouldn’t have done that now;
The seventh morning I checked on her
And she called out, ‘Don’t come in!’
I saw her there on the bedroom floor,
She’d slithered out of her skin.

I stepped aside as she tried to slide
On out through the open door,
She moved like a snake, covered in scales,
I watched her in shock, and awe,
She slithered down to the old lagoon
And disappeared in the reeds,
And that was the last I saw of Cass
I swear, and my heart, it bleeds.

They’ve got me locked in a prison cell
As they think I’ve done her in,
They went to look why she wasn’t there
But they only found her skin,
They think I’m some sort of monster
That I’m mad, or merely a fool,
I keep on saying they’ll find her,
She’s a serpent, down in the pool.

David Lewis Paget

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,
  Glorious in mien and mind;
Their bones are mingled with the mould,
  Their dust is on the wind;
The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,
And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there--the springs
  Gush brightly as of yore;
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,
  As many an age before.
There nature moulds as nobly now,
As e'er of old, the human brow;
And copies still the martial form
That braved Plataea's battle storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek
  Their heaven in Hellas' skies:
Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,
  Her sunshine lit thine eyes;
Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains
Heard by old poets, and thy veins
Swell with the blood of demigods,
That slumber in thy country's sods.

Now is thy nation free--though late--
  Thy elder brethren broke--
Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight,
  The intolerable yoke.
And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see
Her youth renewed in such as thee:
A shoot of that old vine that made
The nations silent in its shade.

Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science--but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right--
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard, he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
Nor coldly does a mother plead.

A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
That fills the dwellers of the skies;
Even stony-hearted Nemesis,
And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes.

"Behold," she said, "this lovely boy,"
While streamed afresh her graceful tears,
"Immortal, yet shut out from joy
And sunshine, all his future years.
The child can never take, you see,
A single step without a staff--
The harshest punishment would be
Too lenient for the crime by half."

All said that Love had suffered wrong,
And well that wrong should be repaid;
Then weighed the public interest long,
And long the party's interest weighed.
And thus decreed the court above--
"Since Love is blind from Folly's blow,
Let Folly be the guide of Love,
Where'er the boy may choose to go."

Diamante falso y fingido,
  Engastado en pedernal, &c.;


"False diamond set in flint! the caverns of the mine
Are warmer than the breast that holds that faithless heart of thine;
Thou art fickle as the sea, thou art wandering as the wind,
And the restless ever-mounting flame is not more hard to bind.
If the tears I shed were tongues, yet all too few would be
To tell of all the treachery that thou hast shown to me.
Oh! I could chide thee sharply--but every maiden knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.

"Thou hast called me oft the flower of all Grenada's maids,
Thou hast said that by the side of me the first and fairest fades;
And they thought thy heart was mine, and it seemed to every one
That what thou didst to win my love, from love of me was done.
Alas! if they but knew thee, as mine it is to know,
They well might see another mark to which thine arrows go;
But thou giv'st me little heed--for I speak to one who knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.

"It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and bear
What fills thy heart with triumph, and fills my own with care.
Thou art leagued with those that hate me, and ah! thou know'st I feel
That cruel words as surely **** as sharpest blades of steel.
'Twas the doubt that thou wert false that wrung my heart with pain;
But, now I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again.
I would proclaim thee as thou art--but every maiden knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes."

Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Raduan,
Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains ran:
The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was,
He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause.
"Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes--their dimness does me wrong;
If my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long;
Thou hast uttered cruel words--but I grieve the less for those,
Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes."

It's hard to think-
this time last week-
I was searching for weeds-
in the cracks of the street-
in front of the church-
Where I once worked-
In the sun, hardwork-
Pulled weeds all day till my hands hurt-

I was working at the shelter when he found me-
said son you need to leave-
move out, get out of this town-
because you ain't happy, and you sure as hell ain't proud.

Back to flint-
crime hole of Michigan-
where I once lived-
when I was a kid-
where the buildings look like ****-
and the streets smell like ****-

It's been six years since I left for Maine-
I've searched flint up and down for a familiar face-
the only thing familiar was the old cafe-
we spent summers here, breakfast everyday.

Lady at the counter asked "sweetie what's your name"-
She was cleaning the tables while I had my tea-
She said they don't pay her enough for this ****.
I said "you still make more than me"

She recognized my face-
I asked her if She remembered any of my friends-
We used to come here everyday-
After school. For burgers and shakes-

I explained, I never kept in touch-
I'm not the type to, And even if I did-
they wouldn't hear from me that much-

I told her what had happened. How I lost my house in flames. I have no where to stay, not my parents, and I don't have any friends.

She said she remembered you. She remembered how we were always
together.

Asked if you still lived in town-
She said yeah-
she sees you sometimes, hanging around.

She set a glass down-
Poured some tea-
Shared a cup with me-
She said I don't want to be involved with you-
Asked her what she means.

Welcome home. She said.
She winked. Again.
Napkin and a pen.
Gave me an address.

Out past the green light,
Past The fairgrounds.
I drive out and around.
And found my self nearly out of gas.
Every light stayed green as I would pass.
There was never any traffic in this town. Or at least none that would last.
Drive past old miss myrtles.
Her house was covered in vines.
She used to leave her window open,
Set there fresh baked pies.
I wonder of she's alive.
I found your house.
Boarded up.
Two men came out.
Undone zippers and button ups.
One laughed and smirked, pretty girl.
Worth every dime.
The veins in my neck popped and i clenched my fists at my side.
You walked out side.

You stood there, so beaten.
It's clear that you've eaten,
Some fists in your life.
You walked back in side.
It's too late to hide,
The black bruises, your eyes.
Don't try and disguise it's too late for make up and lies.
Drugs and money on the table.
Your life's a pond that stands still.
One drop or touch,
And you shake and waver, the flavor is enough.
Holes in the roof.
Teeth on the ground.
Trash and needles,
Radio blaring loud.
Outside traffic.
Busted lips, white noise.
In a crib, a witnessing
little boy.
Thought of you more and more.
Saw a sign, you were what I came home for.
Not your arm full of scars,
Or face full of sores.
All my friends have left and gone.
Numbers lost.
Seems like this whole town is dead.
Every street lights stuck on red.

Kaitelka was in the Equinoctial Aftó, she bathed but always oriented herself as an Argonaut star bathing in the Aegean while waiting for the ******* of Áullos Kósmos. Between both Aulos and Citara, she modeled the auletic- citaristic, in glimpses of her Psychic Trisomy.  In effect of the existence of an extra chromosome in a diploid organism 158, for a number of chromosome fifty-four, instead of a homologous pair of chromosomes. From this position she was limiting her chromosomes of normality in the genetic proximal when entering the bay of Skalá that she was waiting for her native, where the art of navigation danced in the nitrogenous water that brought her from Skalá; from Eleios-Pronnoi, about 39 km south of the main city on the island of Argostoli, in southern Kefalonia, on one of the Ionian islands of Greece. From here, mimetic was thrown towards the art of the unknown sea, collapsing and disoriented by its territorial similarity, and maritime per se of its Otolith that brandished it in dual places of Ionian-Dodecanese geography, following the semiotic songs of Leiak that emerged from the auletic to infer Ballenid genera, which acted precisely between the island and the Bay of Patmos with the same name as Skalá.

Kaitelka's Vernarthian tenor carried her behind her with another Ballenid, this one carried the Demiurge Ezpatkul, with his prominent Augrum or Gold teeth that rotated on the backs of all the borer beetles, being Scarabaeidae that delimited towards a dialectic, and paraphrase of a qualitative satirical one, especially in the form of Vernarth's sub-mythological subgenre. To commend all the hypotheses of this whale, it sang with the native cephalization ultrasound, where it continued to harmonize media in its cranial cavity, and in the muzzles of its larger fins that transmitted waves of parapsychological regression towards Vernarth, parodying the transparent sendal ballads that it made. with his transit through the water, however, not having members that strengthen his controversial cetacean passerby by waters of a melodious literary language, such as a great inspirational propeller, and satires that host greenhouses in most of the jubilation, related to rudders that furrow his verbal poetry, easing restrictions, and possessing the genome that was deprived him in his gestation, of a maternal expropriation victimized with fears of an end, and Apocalypse hungover by the sea and freshwater. They piloted their heart valves, mere and Dantesque with Zeusian buttress spauto, muddled and bundled in their bombastic myocardium like omitted ships without ever lifting anchor and setting sail, a very brief tulle of water satirizing formula additions, and a piece of dull wood on its spur that was It bore like a whale, it was carrying its weight in a literary category where there is no way to test it. Without hindrance, she laughed alongside the breakers in the manner of a belligerent tendril in thick keel skins, dramatizing him and perhaps delaying the investiture of Vernarth's Himation Proskynesis, peering jocularly and foreshadowing his encounter with her. Her chains were Caucasus icebergs, demystifying seasonality by residing linked to a single Down Whale destination, ******* with her dorsal to exhale genome rearrangements with Cinnabar, refining hormones and stereotyped whale chromosomes.

The concordance of the Satirical subgenre, and the polarized gender correspondence inanimate Kaitelka, usurping the intentionality of the sub-mythological drama, in two roads of Skalá that appeared to lose the standard of their ears, in tragic representation versus the comedian staging, harbinger of an interlude between two areas that struggled to have it directed towards three comedies that plunged into three tragedies, missioning the furrowed features of the ideals of survival, with preceded parables of the psychic-linguistic being, due to its canonical supernatural modality by blending itself with disciplined domains. Of a rhetorical poetics, rectified in religions that grant Orphic and messianic structuralism; foreshadowing the hymns of Orpheus in the Bible, and metaphorical in revealing divine truth, accessible only to spirits worthy of it. The purpose of metaphor in her poetry has the deciding function of the ineffable of thought, through simile, comparison, or image.  Song and poetry, song and prayer, prayer and ritual forming an inseparable phrase of meaning in it, impossible to differentiate in the biblical psalms themselves. The penultimate of them recalled number 149, being a hymn destined to accompany the dance; "Make melodies for him, with drums and lyres." It is known that the classical instrument of Orpheus reaches the level of the sacred in biblical texts. Psalm 150 contains an orgiastic ending to a symphony, in the description of the instruments that accompany the word and the voice that praises God, with sermons from Kaitelka blooming from an oceanic being and printing songs of the subgenre, without blemish of sub- mythology and the unconfessed proceeding. The comical exaltation of him recreates aspects of great joy, for those who feel vibrations under his belly in his orphic water, portraying semis or semiotic cathartics of their own trisomic roots, in an effort to decode drama, for intermezzos of the mythological subgenre. Borker with his sword Mythos interpreted the story of Kaitelka when he told her about the melting of Horcondising, seeing in them friendly glaciers that included her within the storytelling of provinces that sensitize the culture by rebirth on spherits and plasma hematocrits, for an apologist that admits inanimate corporality actor. Its genesis is Bereshit, "which names and does not start", from the undervalued parashot of the gods and kings, commanding them ibid to the inter-dogmatism that it contributes in its credit reserve, in large consortiums besieging colonies by the southern seas of the Borker  Nótos. "Evil tears their veins heal their goods and relegate the forgetful in the tradition of existence alongside the demiurges, incontinent to their ills that enjoy making creation sleep, soothing it in innocuous myths that are often more than a truly supernatural!

Helios went out to the road by the west and not by the east, in the nascent instant of the ectoplasm that revealed micro satires that led to the station of the hero who lives hidden, behind the proscenium of cultural and religious intimacy, Kaitelka plunges a few meters below the Aegean where he was already arriving, and he can realize that he did not see marine species around him, only beams of light that distorted his view of those who flatter him on a descent? Underwater a mythical mission wailed on dry surfaces, and the phenomena of the underwater stones were relaxed before any reflection of the veracity of a myth of expression in the mouth of a fish, brushing against systematic hermeticisms of what was infinitesimal. All this dialectical journey towards inevitably alternating molecules of his genome, to re-establish himself in his hybrid status upon reaching Skalá, here he would have to use his two neurochemical brains for a mortal instinct that does not die inside the mouth of a whale but in interrogation. …?  Based on Leiak's sexagesimal nanoscale extension, endowed with a fractional comparison that collects mythologies within them, for the uncertain truth. The only burden of etiological myth in Kaitelka is a consequence of her suffering, which is offered in psychic trisomy, for being **ized by three chromosomes, disorganizing her reality as a specimen that unfolds as a congenital disease.

Kaitelka says: "Who am I and where do I come from? I am reaching the floodgates of my lord Vernarth, and I can see that I am reborn in his astragalus and honeysuckle, which tell a story ****** under the tripod of Herophila.  Authoritarian truth that will bow before the pig to become, smelling here the tragic essence in truths that are hidden in symbolic denial"

Kaitelka is instituted a few miles before she begins to navigate in a zigzag, trying to condense forces for the origin of her ethereal, with sarcasm techniques that the self encourages to plunge into diluvian tears and moan in the scenarios of uncertainty, in the judgment of pouring out real myths, transposing its flow in the destination that is flooded in imprecise gestures and between cries with super sounds that lifted it on the swells, and these, in turn, were shedding the mystery Masken by raising water concentrated in onerous polymorphology. With joys and hilarious meltdowns on the mountains, she approached everything when she reached the pleasant Skalá, escaping from the cosmogony that bound her ungraciously on the light water, overflowing towards the very origin of a Vernarthian deity, in pasts and futures that do not intersect in the radial of its origins. The sky proclaimed laughter and mimicry gestures that adhered to the vitrifying phenomenon of past-present pashkien images, ready to lightning that heals the invalidations of walking on disturbed waters, a dipsomaniac leitmotif in early Christian justice. Kaitelka sins irascible, violent and proud, urgent and judicious, but conciliatory despite carrying a cross and a harpoon on her back. She will remain Kaitelka Down, but Patmos will arrogate her Thracian gift from her Orphic origin to her, for purposes of radial preeminence in the Ballenids that hoist sacred sites. The adventure prescribes a univitelino twin, but when she goes beyond the hirsute destiny of her Iliad, she begs to go transforming into a rainy sphinx on the thick bronze roof when the coins are broken, towards a seduction stop that is enthroned in the gloom of the minotaur, in the numinous hands of a daffodil and on the face of the Epsilon. Or crawling in mitral of valvulopathy with the carriage messengers, with the swans or pigeon birds; perching on a wreath of roses and myrtles that surround her red bozos. Almost always appearing undressed next to her escort, usually more than multiplied towards her, with the amazement of her animal consorts, which are dolphins, and Thracian pigeons, a priori of being covered by the Pythia of Delphi that is migrating in murky triumphs of the Achaemenides in Gaugamela.

Wax myrtles slip
Sideways on bodies-
Their brothers, 
Buried beneath fresh soil 
Of an ancient Earth,
Mixed amongst
The loblolly pines
That caper with the breeze.

* * *

Sad nights shift
To dreary days
And ashen clouds 
Soak in the light
Until they all 
Ignite in flames
And lose their strength 
Or will to fight.
They lie alone 
In sheets of wind
On beds of air 
And thoughts,
And, patiently, 
They wait to end
Their lives 
And be forgotten.

* * *

Long after,
We sit and wonder
Whether palatial skies
Will fall like rain
Away from us,
Torrents of dreams
Abandoned
For to sleep.

Love's worshippers alone can know
  The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
  His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science--but the day
  Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
  A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
  Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played--
  A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right--
  But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
  So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
  She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
  Nor coldly does a mother plead.
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
  That fills the dwellers of the skies;
Even stony-hearted Nemesis,
  And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes.

"Behold," she said, "this lovely boy,"
  While streamed afresh her graceful tears,
"Immortal, yet shut out from joy
  And sunshine, all his future years.
The child can never take, you see,
  A single step without a staff--
The harshest punishment would be
  Too lenient for the crime by half."

All said that Love had suffered wrong,
  And well that wrong should be repaid;
Then weighed the public interest long,
  And long the party's interest weighed.
And thus decreed the court above--
  "Since Love is blind from Folly's blow,
Let Folly be the guide of Love,
  Where'er the boy may choose to go."

Roses are red, but only sometimes
And I don't care much for them anyways
Violets are never blue
But I like crepe myrtles better
Sugar is sweet, but too sweet for me
I'd much rather have spicy
As for you? You're only sweet all the time
Other times, you're incredible.

I promised her
A G-Wagon and a Camaro SS
Had her thinkin that I was the best
And we gon make it out the hood.
I had promised her
That we gon build a business together
And... You know what?
**** this weather,
Its been raining all my life,

Hell,

"Baby you bout to be my wife."

I promised her a garden of sunkissed
Cayenne roses and
Crepe Myrtles,

Oh **** a graden of Crepe myrtles,
And an ****** from a drop of the finest wine
Fresh from a muscadine fruit.
I promised her the best time in our youth
And a sweet tooth,
She got a knack for sugar rushes
And blushes.

I promised her a gold and diamond pinky ring,
And a Mariachi Band
Dark purple amethyst stones
In her hands,
Laying down on a black sand beach.

Cause life's a beach,
But I gave her a tidal wave of lies..........

A storm is brewing,
And I found peace with ignoring her calls
For the past few days,
Getting lazy,
The air getting hazy
And maybe I'll hit her back when I'm ready.
Maybe I'll get her back when I'M steady,
Ready, willing and able.

She approached me,
"...I thought you said you don't like fables."
I said "Baby I read fairy tales growing up,
And my whole life has been a biography."
Because I feel like someone is writing down everything I do.
Even the love I had for you.
Never knew how to stay true,
But always stuck to myself,
Hell if it was possible,
Stuck to my wealth.

But try me,
Like James Brown to his "hands down."
That's my best friend.
Walk with me
Talk with me,
And watch how good I make you believe in my vanity.
Fall into my trap door,
You walk in on a cracked floor,
And when you fall thru,
I'll call you,
"The Queen of Stupidity"
Only because...
You really thought you was getting into me.

Dummy.

I’d hidden away the mirrors
Packed them up and sent them off,
Taken the shine off the saucepan lids,
Sandpapered the coffee ***,
Everything that reflected I’d
Sand-blast, like the sliding doors,
Even got rid of the polisher
For shining the wooden floors.

It was very like narcolepsy when
She saw her face on a plate,
She’d go in a trance and sit for hours
In a crazy, dreamlike state,
I’d take away the reflection and
She’d sit and weep for hours,
‘You’ve taken away my beauty,’ she
Would say, and take cold showers.

It seemed like a terrible sickness that
She loved her looks so much,
She’d say, ‘If you won’t let me see myself,
I’ll just make do with touch,’
She’d run her fingers over her face
Explore each crease and mound,
And sigh to her satisfaction as
She felt her lips turn down.

I couldn’t get rid of the garden pool
That flowed on in from the brook,
Babbling over the standing stones
From the woods at Nether Hook,
I’d catch her kneeling beside the pool
And staring into its depths,
Smiling at each reflection that
Would ripple with every breath.

‘Beware of the evil Water Sprite,’
I told her more than once,
‘He takes advantage of lovely girls
For he hates to be outdone.
He’ll lure you into a shady pool
With guile, and his tender lies
And hold you down ‘til you surely drown,
You’ll avoid him, if you’re wise.’

She told me then of a vision that
She’d seen, that of a prince,
He’d smiled at her from the water but
She hadn’t seen him since.
‘That’s not a prince but the Water Sprite
And he’s trying to lure you down,
To put your face to the water, but
I’ve told you once, you’ll drown.’

The water was babbling gently on
A sunny day in Spring,
In shades of the weeping myrtles and
The sound of cuckooing,
Miranda was knelt beside the pool
And I saw her head go down,
When claws reached out of the water
Pulled her in, without a sound.

I raced across and I seized her hair
And I pulled her from the pool,
But claws had raked at her pretty face,
She said, ‘I feel a fool!
I should have listened to you, I know
But I thought that just one kiss…’
But he had turned to a monster and
Had bitten her rose red lips.

I put the mirrors all back in place
And I bought new shiny pans,
Polished the floor, you can see your face
But she hides behind her hands,
She never looks in a mirror now
Though her scars are healed and white,
But goes each day to poison the pool
To **** off the Water Sprite.

David Lewis Paget

The years pass – wings –
the valleys grow
and the picks lose the silhouette clear.
Who’s hitting furiously the horses young,
the sky who has there lit?
Not me! Not me!
Me and you, sat on a short shore
along the path, sunk in myrtles
and we’re looking at the love,
in that endless mirror.
And somewhere young girls
are singing a refrain in low voice
and giant woods are losing root.

Horses are tearing in sulphur and volcanoes.
Inside of me – the sea is murmuring.
© bogpan
--------
original:

*(минават годините)

Минават годините - крила -
нарастват долините
и върховете губят силуета ясен.
Кой удря яростно конете млади,
небето кой е там запалил?
Не аз! Не аз!
Със теб сме седнали на нисък бряг
покрай пътеката, потънала във мирти
и гледаме във любовта,
в това безкрайно огледало.
А нейде младите момичета
припяват с нисък глас
и дървеса гигантски губят корен.

Коне препускат в сяра и вулкани.
Във мен - шуми морето.

*Translator bulgarian-english: Vessislava Savova
rarebird

Wake me when the Elephant Ears grow tall , when the first red rose comes to call , as the mesmerizing scent of Gardenia fills the air , when the Butterfly bushes receive their host in Spring ...
Come to my door when the Crape Myrtles stand glorious , as the Peach trees blossom , when songbirds of every shape and brilliant song prepare their nurseries , as the Pink Begonias undertake their beautiful Summer journey ....

November Sun , refusing to reveal her loneliness , a cloudy piece of the world in tears this morning ..
A red tailed Hawk , grounded by rain just outside my window , a blue dragonfly sailing aimlessly across the meadow ..
The vigor and warmth of Summer , the candle of hope lighting the night has abated .. Tall Oaks , Magnolias and Crape Myrtles like lovers , stand naked , unashamed ..
My eyes have lost peripheral vision , anxiety taken command of my consciousness , rumors of intrigue whisper softly on warm southern winds .. The physical forces in mechanical motion , condemnation of my spirit at the hour of the eruption ..
My demon narcolepsy , a marionette of ploy and trickery for a student of hope standing dead on both feet ..
With a red heart on your sleeve , she wears a smile well , like many a familiar door , slipping quietly from within my grasp ...

Kaitelka was in the Equinoctial Aftó of Áullos Kósmos IV after geomancy was oriented as a star Argonaut bathing in the Aegean while waiting for the ******* of various sectors of Áullos Kósmos. Between both Aulos and Citara, she was modeled with the aulética-citarística, glimpses of her Psychic Trisomy. In effect of the existence of an extra chromosome in a diploid organism 158, for a quantity of chromosome fifty-four, instead of a homologous pair of chromosomes. From this position she was limiting herself with her chromosomes of normality in the genetic proximal, upon entering the Bay of Skalá, which was waiting for her native again, where the art of navigation flourished in the nitrogenous water that brought her from Skalá; from Eleios-Pronnoi, about 39 km south of the main city on the island of Argostoli, in southern Kefalonia, on one of the Ionian islands of Greece. From here, she mimetic, she turned towards the art of the unknown sea next to Wonthelimar who endorsed her with his favorite, collapsing and disoriented by their anti-gregarious territorial similarity, and maritime per se the Otolith that brandished him in dual places of Ionian-Dodecanese geography, following the semiotic songs of Leiak that emerged from the aulética to infer Balénid genres, which acted precisely between the island and the bay of Patmos with the same name as Skalá, to meet everyone and be a participant in the construction of the sanctuary.
Kaitelka's Vernarthian tenor carried her behind her with another Ballenid, this one again carried the Demiurge Ezpatkul, with his prominent Augrum or Gold incisors that turned on the backs of all the borer beetles, being Scarabaeidaes that were delimited towards logic, and paraphrase of a qualitative satirical, especially in the modality of the subgenre, and sub-mythology of Vernarth. To commend all the hypotheses of this whale that sang with the native cephalization ultrasound, where it continued to arrange means between the middle and in its cranial cavity to the percentage of the world map, with the muzzles of its larger fins transmitting waves of parapsychological regression towards Vernarth, and parodying the transparent cendal ballads that he did with his passage through the water, despite not having members that strengthen the controversial cetacean passerby by waters of a melodious rhetorical language, such as a great inspirational helix, and satires that house greenhouses in most of the jubilation, akin to rudders that I furrowed in his verbal poetry, easing restrictions, and possessing the genome that was deprived of his gestation, of the maternal expropriation, victimized with fears of omega, and of Apocalypse hungover by sea and water candy. They piloted their heart valves, mere and Dantesque with the Zeusian buttress spauto, muddled and bundled in their bombastic myocardium like omitted ships without ever lifting anchor and setting sail, a very brief tulle of water satirized aggregates of their formula, and a piece of stony wood on their spur he braced himself like a mammal, he was carrying his weight in a literary category where there is no way to test it. Without hindrance, she was hilarious next to the breakers in the manner of a belligerent tendril with thick keel skins, dramatizing him, and perhaps that would delay her in reaching the investiture of Vernarth's Proskynesis Himation, some looked out jocular and foreshadowed to meet with her. Her chains were Caucasus icebergs, demystifying seasonality by residing linked to a single destination of Balénido Down, ******* with her dorsal that exhaled rearrangements of the Cinnabar genome, clarifying hormones and stereotyped balenid chromosomes.

The concordance of the Satirical subgenre, and the inanimate polarized gender correspondence to Kaitelka, usurping the intentionality of the sub-mythological drama, in two Radas of Skalá that appeared to lose the standard of their ears, with tragic representativity versus comedian staging, heralding an interlude between two areas that struggled to have it directed towards three comedies that pounced on three tragedies, missionizing crossed features of the ideals of survival, with parables preceded by the soul-linguistic being, due to its canonical supernatural modality when it was mimicked with disciplined domains after of a rhetorical poetics, rectified in religions granting orphic messianic structuralism bis of the equinoctial aft; foreshadowing the hymns of Orpheus in the Bible, and metaphorical in revealing divine truth, accessible only to spirits worthy of it. The purpose of metaphor in her poetry has the deciding function of the ineffable of thought, through simile, or in comparison to imagining. The song is one poetry, and the song such a praying too, prayer and ritual forming an inseparable syntagma of meaning in her escaping from Arbela's zither, impossible to differentiate in the biblical psalms themselves. The penultimate of them recalled number 149, being a hymn destined to accompany the dance; Orpheus says: "make melodies for him, with drums and lyres." It is known that the classical instrument of Orpheus reaches the level of the sacred in biblical texts. Psalm 150 contains an orgiastic ending to a symphony, in the description of the instruments that accompany the word and the voice that praises God, with sermons from Kaitelka blooming from an oceanic being and printing songs of the subgenre, without blemish of sub- mythology and the unconfessed proceeding. The comical exaltation of him recreates aspects of great joy, for whom in his Orphic water, he feels vibrations under his belly portraying cathartic and semiotic of his own trisomic root, in an effort to decode drama, for intermezzos of the mythological subgenre. Borker with his sword Mythos interpreted the story of Kaitelka when he tells her about the melting of Horcondising, seeing in them friendly glaciers that included her within provincial storytelling that sensitizes the culture being reborn on its spheres and plasma hematocrits, for an apologist who admits acting corporality and inanimate. Its genesis is Bereshit, "which names and does not start", from the undervalued parashot of the gods and kings, ordering them from the ibidem to inter dogmatism, in which it contributes in its credit reserve, in large consortiums besieging colonies by the southern seas of the Nótos of Borker. "Evil tears their veins heal their goods relegates the forgetful in the tradition of their existence alongside the demiurges, incontinent to their ills who enjoy making creation sleep, soothing it in innocuous myths that are often more than a supernatural truth!

Helios went out to the road by the west and not by the east, in the nascent instant of the ectoplasm that revealed micro satires that led to the station of the hero who lives hidden, behind the proscenium of a cultural and religious intimacy, Kaitelka plunges a few meters below the Aegean where he was already arriving, and he can realize that he did not see marine species around him, only beams of lights that distorted the view of those who flatter him on a descent? Underwater a mythical mission wailed on dry surfaces, and in the phenomena of the underwater stones, they relaxed before any reflection of the veracity of a myth of expression in the mouth of a fish other than Theseus, brushing systematic hermeticisms with the gloomy and infinitesimal. All this dialectical journey towards inevitably alternating molecules of his finite genome, to reestablish in his hybrid status when arriving at Skalá, here he would have to use his two neurochemical brains for a mortal instinct that does not die inside the mouth of a whale, but in the interrogation after being swallowed…? based on the extension of the sexagesimal nanoscale of Leiak, equipped with a fractional comparing that collects mythologies within them, for the uncertain truth. Kaitelka's only etiological myth burden is a consequence of her suffering, which is offered in her psychic trisomy, for being bastardized by three chromosomes, disorderly the reality of her specimen that unfolds her as a congenital disease.

Kaitelka says: Who am I and where do I come from? I am reaching the floodgates of my lord Vernarth, and I can see that I am reborn in his astragalus and vines, which tell a story ****** under the tripod and vapors of Herófila. Authoritarian truth that will bow before a pig to become, smelling here in the tragic essence, and in truths that are hidden in its symbolic denial?
Kaitelka is instituted a few miles before she begins to navigate in a zigzag, trying to condense forces for the origin of her ethereal, with sarcasm techniques that self promote her to blink in deluded tears and moan in the scenarios of uncertainty, in the opinion of pouring real myths, transposing its flow in the destination that is flooded in imprecise gestures and between cries with super sounds that raised it on the swells, and these, in turn, were shedding the mystery Masken by raising water concentrated in onerous poly morphology. With joys and hilarious meltdowns on the mountains, she approached everything when she arrived at the pleasant Skalá, escaping from cosmogony that linked her weightlessly on the light water, overflowing towards the very origin of a Vernarthian deity, in pasts and futures that do not intersect in the radial of its origins. The sky proclaimed laughter and mimic gestures that adhered to the vitrifying phenomenon of past-present pashkien images, ready to lightning that heals the invalidations of walking on troubled waters, a dipsomaniac leitmotif in early Christian justice.
                                            
Kaitelka sins irascible, violent and proud, urgent and judicious, but conciliatory despite carrying a cross and a harpoon on her back. She will continue to be Kaitelka Down, but Patmos will arrogate her Thracian gift of her of Orphic origin to her, for purposes of her radial preeminence in the Ballenids that hoist all the sacred sites. The biological diagnostic prescribes an univitelino twin whale, but when she goes beyond the hirsute destiny of her Iliad, she begs to go transforming into the rainy sphinx on the thick bronze ceiling as she breaks in the minting of the coins, towards a stop of seduction that enthrones in the gloom of the minotaur, and in the numinous hands of a daffodil on the face of the Epsilon. Or crawling in the mitral and in her valvulopathy with messengers, carriages, and with swans or pigeon birds; perching on a wreath of roses and myrtles that surround her red bozos. Almost always appearing undressed next to her escort, usually multiplied in excess towards her, with the amazement of her animal consorts that dolphins are, and Thracian pigeons, a priori being covered by the Pythia of Delphi that is migrating in the murky triumphs of the Achaemenides in Gaugamela.

Turtles, crape myrtles
Tadpoles, baby frogs
Running feet, summer heat
Cicadas, crossing logs
Glancing back smiling
Forging on to explore
Oh, how i love
Little you, age four

I and my colleague got out of our car,
We, the two men with a trench coat wrapped around us,
Walked down to the alley on that cloudy day,
A ****** scene it was, across the river bed,
Where once the pearly white swans swam.

There lied a dead young woman with a stab in her chest,
Through the heart,
With luscious red hair lied a beauty,
That enamors a thousand souls,
A blooming red rose aside her right arm,
A necklace made of scallops around her neck.

A blonde winged child crying profusely
With an empty quiver around his back,
While whistling doves hovered over us,  
And a purse containing letters from the shepherds,
And a commander.

And a man and a woman standing
Besides the body, were crying
And with sadness in their voice,
Saying about how without her
They will forget how to love in time,
And will never be loved anymore.

In such wailing times,
All I could do was to shed some pennies,
And I said them here are pennies,
To plant some myrtles in her memories,
Across these riverbeds,
And hope the swans swim in these rivers once again.

At the collision of timothy and zoysia , where Crape Myrtles reveal their late morning luster , where luminosity and cloud continually sketch , color and reinvent open pastures , individuality forever fading , leaving sadness at the afternoon approach then gone
Hours without occupation , warmth and windsong  
Tethered , embittered and hidden*...

A deadly task at hand , see the November broom sage conforming with the lay of the land
The smooth stones are secure in their creekside homes
Adolescent Crepe Myrtles abide in the company of elder Oaks
Every plant allotted soil and very much aware of their place
Under the ever meandering compression of man with a valuable lesson of humility and grace
Behold the wall builders , the ceiling setters , the clothed and the rambunctious
The soil breakers , the ravagers , the fire starters , the problem
solvers mingled with the war mongers
The breath of creation fueling their thirsted conflagrations
Behold "the thinkers" , destroyers and the manipulators* ..

Living with day and night
black and white
crepe myrtles of white and pink
variety and variance make me think
now and then a dissonant pitch
makes my life rich.

But sometime what seems at odds
is not.  Like seeing Love AND God
contemplation AND friendship
solitude AND kinship.
Why must it be either or
against or for?
Why can’t we see through
the differences between me and you?

What is so sad
what seems so bad
is when difference leads to rejection
then I must leave for my own protection.
When she said, “If you are this then you can’t be that!”
I left.  I won’t be her doormat.

Some people thrive on opposition
attracted to dominance and friction
but at this stage of being me
I choose to be free
to see through those things that divide
beyond the outer mar to the beauty inside.

One of these days I'll become a Jay
I'll bathe in Port Lake everyday
I'll command the fencerow with early morning
original song
Feed on blackberries and pine nuts the whole
day long
I'll nap in Live Oaks whenever I wish
I'll turn Crape Myrtles into my evening niche* ...