Oh, Leanan Sídhe,
my flower of May,
not found, but chanced upon,
as a stranger to a hidden glade.
If only I had known that day
that should I turn away
to fetch a garland for your hair,
a band of heather for your feet,
that when I looked again—
still rummaging on the heath—
you would be gone!
And that enchanted sídhe
become a fragrant tomb,
empty as June,
mute to its own melody.
July’s lush summer days run by in haste,
each bereft of its perfume
like salt having lost its taste.
And August’s early rain—
an empty thrumming on the sill.
White figurine of cold delight,
forged in tumult,
quenched at sea,
dressed in eldritch finery;
I lost you to a fairy’s whim,
a fairy’s wile
that dropped a dwimmer in my skin—
this strange and listless thing
of lead-winged mirth
and restless wandering.
Cursed am I to haunt that silent glade,
to linger for some mark or trace
where once you stood and singing spoke.
Now mute and dumb as leaf and stone
stands the barrow
where you led me down
and took me as your paramour,
through corridors with agate walls
that gleamed in whorls of shifting hue,
past echoing cascades of ice-maned steeds
whose breath in angry billows blew,
or hung in sullen drifts of mist
above the grinning beds of amethyst.
Their snorts and blows came on and after us
in echoes barbed and ravenous
that rang within the fog as siren’s calls,
daring us forsake our lover’s tryst
and join beneath the froth and clangour
of their jaws.
And turn I did,
so gripped was I within their grim authority,
until you grasped me fast and drew me swift away,
my Leanan Sídhe,
urging me before and on,
until those wrathful waters
lost their sway and harried us no more
than fleeting footfalls
on those green and mossy floors.
Then presently, we stopped,
and stood in silence, still:
the silence of the barrow’s hum
whose chant was felt, not heard,
as of a deep-abiding gong
chimed on pure pellucid bars of larimar
and red spinel, whose ringing chords
left opalescent ripples on the soul.
Here within the sanctum of your realm,
you brought me to the altar of your flame
and gave to me your vow
and asked of me the same.
And yet, no answer came—
though lips declared,
though mind would will it
and fists defend—
for none was there attended
deep within my heart’s domain
but a low and ragtag company
that would answer in my name.
Then you shattered with a glance of fire
my foolish grin,
and banished, too, my lovelorn stare
within that moment’s fierce eternity.
And so, stripped bare—
with nothing left to offer,
nor compare—
you bid me pour the sacred oil primordial
of amber mixed with balsam dark and sensuous,
and lifted you upon the emerald dais
of your fairy faith,
and anointed then your moonstone toes,
your rose-lipped mound, your heaving breast,
your lips of garnet red,
until you summoned me with ardent hand
and brought me to the going out and drawing in,
the fulcrum of that perfect union
of Venus and her consort, Mars,
till there among the ringing beds of amethyst,
the singing spires of tourmaline,
we touched the void that lights the stars.
Now empty is that beggar’s grot
and vague the trail of bark’s rough braille,
nor yet remains a single mote of phantom dust
for me to tender as an epitaph.
No ripple yet abides
where once your feet dipped beneath
the dim-green waters of that place,
like two blind fish,
frisk and slick,
taken in by that voluptuous embrace—
its cold indifference nearer than a kiss—
to slip down deep,
unstirred by man’s possessing hands,
to lie on silk-soft sheets of silt,
smooth river stones, your bed,
while here I tread the empty stage
of that ill-fated serenade.
Dead to rude September’s ruddy cheeks,
her dimpled boles adrip with Autumn rain,
and lost to ripe October’s antlered host
who brings the Horn Dance back again
from ButterCross to Abbots Bromley manor house.
November’s mulled farewells proceed
beneath a wind-ploughed sky,
all dressed up in icy tweed,
while I unlive this solemn elegy
that hems the silence with its chord.
December’s hoar-white hand
still moves my quill;
inch by inch performs
its aching saraband.
It licks and sips,
strains with its hard lips,
scrapes and scrawls
on pages parched as desert sand,
while inspiration still flows in
from some enchanted rill
where you still reign as fairy queen
deep beneath that fated hill.
And though your bounties yet endure,
oh, woodland muse,
have I lost all want and will
and use, robbed of all command?
And yet, I follow still the echo
of that stately sprite
that made of me her acolyte.
April’s ghosts of golden daffodils,
I see from far across
the whited hills of January,
but is there any greater hopelessness
than February’s grim countenance,
unless I count this mind
and its pretence at life,
no thought to think but of this beggar man
you left behind?
And yet, I see,
I asked of you to love in me
what I disdain,
once trafficked as a lover’s vow,
when to accept would seat a rival in your soul,
this revenant,
unfaced, unmet,
unmasked within the searing heat
of your white crucible.
March strides keenly on through snow and sun:
in like a lion, out like a lamb,
to April’s budding bowers and misted hills
that yield at last
in May’s adoring arms—
her hedgerows ripe and garrulous,
her echoing woods and lucent leaves
that shade the bluebells in their verdant veils.
But look!
A year has come and gone,
that twisted in its burrowing thorn
to bring me to that blackest night
that sets the soul against itself.
There every horror and delight
must be accepted and denied
to win that sweet reprieve
that leads me back—
though by no haunted track or style—
to that enchanted sídhe
where once a stranger came upon himself,
not found, but chanced upon,
far beneath that sacred mound.
Oh, Leanan Sídhe,
through such uncommon torment now I see
that this deceiving elf
was but the shadow in myself
and that sweet flower of May,
the spark of my divinity,
untouched by time,
it answers to the deep heart’s call,
a path, laid out plainly as it ever was:
this promise of divine romance
that dotes in silence at my door.