I am the helpless, wingéd fly whose thirst
For nectar draws me close to your steel cell
Where once imprisoned, death drapes me; the first
I’m not to fall before your binding spell.
For many men in vain your kiss pursued
But sadly, your false kiss bore life’s mishap
With slumberous poison in your chasms brewed
You marred their hearts for you’re the Venus trap,
The beast whose luring nectars lovers draw,
Tormentor whose first weapon is your sweets,
Whose second is the power of your jaw,
And all the poison that your heart secretes!
    Of your dark deeds, to others, I’ll impart
    So they won’t be allured to your black heart!

Your kiss is sweet enough to quench my thirst,
My hunger, and the flames of my esteems,
But when time comes when your sweet lips are pursed
Such love bears forth a vault of wilted dreams.
Coy mistress, be such bashful fancy crime,
Love shall imprison you in shackles, drear
But why ‘pend on your lips and their sweet clime
When in you dwells an aspect, more so fair?
Must I pursue instead love by the core,
And not by sweetness of the outer shell?
Aye, hungering solely by your lips no more
I must myself and all my thirst compel!
    Why must I lead to kiss the lips of you
    Thus make what love I’ve taken to be true?

My heart now aches with sleepy dreariness:
    A dreamy wake from whose dull, soothing spell
I can’t awake, nor can I sleep to bless
    My dreams with profound ecstasy as well
    For all recurring visions, sweet and deep,
         Have turnéd to a black and empty void,
               And all the stepping stones of pale night
         Are clouded by the mists of murky sleep,
     Bedewed with memories that I enjoyed:
The visions with which I can’t reunite.  

My mind now pines for all those moments when
    Endured had love and bliss before slow time
Had bound such moments once and then again
    Shall bind more dreams and memories, sublime
    Oh, vista of my dreams, unseen, unheard
        Your brow is laid with shawls of quietness
            Your pinions are held tight with the chain
        Of all my visions; fly then, flame-plumed bird
    And sing such sacred song you can’t express
Once I now free you from my wilting brain

My tears are of ripe joy and bliss’s ruth
    And though my days are thus outright expelled
I shall keep in my core, the flames of youth
    Which once I had in early years, beheld
    Sweet memories, ye shaking leaves, adieu
        I bid you well in winter and in spring
            A-flickering before fate’s icy breath
        And though, no longer, shall I see all you
    I’m glad you flew upon nostalgia’s wing
And warméd my cold heart before my death

Swift bee, the gilded messenger of bliss,
    Begirt with golden stars of Heaven’s span,
What draws you to the clover’s gentle kiss?
    Sweet nectars, that the strongest drinker can
    Carouse with dreams and dizzy waves of sleep,
        Or mocks the freshest breath of summer’s clime?
            Swift bee, a flame-plumed star of black and gold,
    Why do you with your mouth, completely reap
            The liquors that each golden bud does hold,
        And lulls with somnolence the might of time?

Oh, bee, you spread the tufted pollen clouds
     Like nebulae of opal stars crossways
The delicate, soft digitalis crowds,
    Which passionately garner sunbeam rays
    Within their coral shells. I can’t express
        How much your toil’s worth to coming spring,
             And how so passioned glide your wings around
    The purple, gentle harebell’s loosened dress,
             And make, through pretty hums, spring’s hopeful sound
        Oft too profaned by your most fearsome sting!

Oh, pretty hummer! Hearty worker! Bee!
    I see you roaming round the garden’s bend,
Where sweet, white daisies wreathe a canopy,
    And make you but a hearty, cheerful friend.
    Swift bee, the aching, swollen heart of mine
        Desires comfort where pain knows no ruth
            The buds hold, like rich garners golden grain,
    Ambrosia of the gods, dream’s honeyed wine
            So bring and let dear bee, such moisture stain
        My lips and warm my heart with spring’s bright youth!

Sweet love, if death’s black net my mind shall cover
And drape with doubly twining nets my heart,
Be not the one to weep and cry, dear lover
For never shall I from your essence, part.
When you shall to your chambered bed, retire,
I shall bear my embalming pinions
Above your crest, so that when you shall tire,
You’ll safely roam in dream’s dominions.
When you shall wake before the morning’s charms,
And bear upon your brain, renewéd thought,
I shall enwrap you with my tender arms,
Although you’ll feel them as the air and not
    As mortal flesh, but some unearthly ether,
    For, love, in life and death we’ll stay together.

The vast sapphire nebulae of space,
    All rising o’er in zeniths of sweet dreams,
    Feed all the leas and all the murm’rous streams
With folds on cloudy folds of moonbeam rays.
Whene’er I look within the lake’s clear face,
    I see each high aurora, which then gleams,
    Caroused with Heaven’s soft and dewy beams,
Which flicker in a thick and splendid haze.
I see the moon, upon the whole world gaze
And all the stars which skies with their souls trace,
Glide, trembling in some waters’ ebbing grace
     With some unearthly music, so it seems.
Oh, as I sit before the pale light
    Of stars, I sigh and dream of sacred bliss,
    And tuck myself in Heaven’s chrysalis,
I feel as if such place is more than night…

Give me my pen and feed my heart with muse,
And I shall write until the night transforms
Into the morning, when the earth imbues
And quakes with spirits of the sleeping worms.
I’ll glean as gleans a reaper golden grain
Sweet dreams, which with some mystic magic swell
And set my spirit and my burdened brain
Free from the fleshy temples of their cell.
My quill would spill sweet words as if it’s dew
Or some ambrosial nectar from a fount
In Heaven’s reign. My tongue shall throb anew
With gilded glory. Evermore I’ll mount
    Into the cloudless climes of deep midníght
    Just give me paper and the will to write!