Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
’Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.

The Roulette of Fanfare by Imaginative Glare (A Cooperation of Timeless Synquest)
Sunken fortitude is the bailiwick of interminable eupathy that sustenance embezzles by minutiae of orange spectral linearity of bypass becoming a torus of tragic reprieve in repcrevel fashions of hyjamb. Thus we float above the carcass of syrts of certitude by cadasters of nostalgic drawls of malingering strawberry staddle for the scutage of pinhoked disaster. We renege on committed opalescence because tranquil dangles of vinsky are waged by trenchcoats of bluster for vector arrays of galvanized decorum that swirks for elegant synectics by dredged grains of agrarian sanity by the pleckigger of lopsided islands of creativity that are the notarikons of aleatory finite but equidistant largesse of not just a jumboism but a jetsetting travesty of traversed time mastered by ignoble ingenuity. I limn with piracy as a freebooter cordslave plugged by demitoilet reminders of the flyndresque alloreck of tinjesk spectral ultimatums that are the stretchgraves of a retrospective infinity that is a bystander to catapulted cohesive coherence found only in piecemeal culinary seditions against the drip of a turncock of roosted clarification in muted hindsights of foresight itself. The pleonexia of abeyance is the riddle of enigmatic promulgation that flickers even with partial compartmentalized servitude to the burlesque the burrows of an ophidiodiarium scare away any jaunty sleek car from the boosterism of a farmed collision with disjointed surgery of nimble reticence that braves the seismotic macadamized plutocracy of drift without sedition in sedimentary clairvoyance with a pointed amphigory that is actually a starved clarity for ommateums without spelunked trudges that occur in dovetails for disguise by synectic optimum at the zenith of the hive synergy of singularity.  The justified jest of aleatory flexes of finitude is a shambolic gesture of the limber of divergent interpretation ingeminating the world by sapient degrees of psychometry of divergence in piecemeal asseveration of the hindsight of the festooned not tepid or butchered by the obvious to the glaring cineaste but rather a gloaming glint of refracted ingenuity roosted beyond any alienesque erratic happenstance that is itself a beatific fortuity for the geotechnics of human emergence into supersensible planes traversed in a stereodimensional covenant with a compacted compost of DIVERGENT IMAGINATION OF CADASTER rather than the regelation of the obvious. Timmynoggies of cartels are regnant because of the repugnance of loyalty to the fricative frigates of superlunary mention of ratiocination divorced from husbandry of hyjamb for giant leaps in rigged ambsace maledictions of unfair pleckigger of the wrikpond relumed by huffs of impotent flairs of flambeaus beyond ecdysiast stretchgraves of perilous paralysis for the supererogatory of the accursed destruction of stoichomety of solipsism tremulous by biocentric levity above fastened redoubled pederasty. We maraud the rabble of nostalgia of rhinoplasty of penumbras that live on rainshod territorialism beyond the jolkers of everlasting foofaraw livid by betrayal but erratic in glamour without crackjaw costermongers vitiating the vociferous because of incumbent thermodynamics that affixes the stagnant to the latticework of riddle by sturdy integral derived fliphavens of shibboleths of solitude. Education is a fliction of robust derangement of nowhere men taxed by the celerity of traversed traipses of memory beyond encaged bridewells for recanted alchemy to prerogatives of the roomy expansive facsimiles of departed stigmas of bossy clairvoyance for martian glimpses at sunken waste. The bernaggles of brittle titanium are abrasive when they are alloyed with the compost of material dynamics of capital without avenged prediction cemented in sunken graves taxing the nostalgia of histrinkage that is affixed to boschveldt traindeque for venial consanguinity to dikephobia. We elevate the endpoints of abridged turriform clockwork provincial shibboleths that are the proctor and protectorate of insular robbery of crowned trounces of gravity for the gravitas of sepulchral vanity learned from famigeration of filial tithes of duty. A dutiful sedition is countermanded by the pews of turnstiles that enamor the enamel of rollercoasters because of vague vagaries of bedazzled contrition for wanton ambition on psaphonic psychology and therefore sustain the vibronic thrombosis of nonlethal inseminations of clear aqueous transfixed filigrees of demented notions of cheerful apocrypha of liturgical pride beyond the dungeons of prejudiced inquisition. The jolkers of insolent archipelagos of spinsters that levitate by parsed peril of delaminated parsecs of glazed parturition is the orchestra of a nonlinear grove of invented abecedarian witwanton notice of maddened cattle of gluttony forestalled by the clairvoyance of otiose operations of redoubled countenance that consequently is septiferous by degrees of sanguine rapacity the qwartion of endeared endeavor to surpass the gentility of brooked temperatures frozen to sustain but not mainline the congeners of the elective agenda to bypass the thornbushes of conflagration without knavery or cutthroat embellishments of bedlam. And without the din of simplicity occluding the transcendent goal of humane synoecy of fustilugs of fumatoriums endangered but not inflammed by controversy we witness the insubordinate university of hibernation becoming a specter of grisly bromidrosis of lackluster forswinked fortitude because the majestic sinew of the overwrought is a refrained luxuriance of pity of facetious glebes ringed around orbital planes of synthetic abridgement that supposes the sultry is actually the swelter of calenture but taxed by sicarians of the grandeval it meets no fanfare among elective privilege. Amphigory is not categorized as dross by shipwreck but only by synechdocial docility of groomed barren arcades of storged complication leading to regeneration of a world leaden with the epicurean epithets of agerasia that burden the wardens of poached intermission without remission because the drapes of the greatest art are thus created by the complete transfiguration of the soul bolted to ethereal expansive heights that dwarf all pithy gnomes of the gardens of prospective desiccation of the petty gripes of the gavel of idiocy rather than the astounding artform of the newfangled tabanids to supererogatory oceans of creativity. The benchmarks of sublime illusions of supremacy are a hidebound taxidermy of the rookery of greenhorns to summit the testy secrecy of inane drawl that scrabbles the miniature embellishments of petty sportive lunacy as a figment of the feral nature of proclivity recumbent upon its own gladdened prickly renegades that align with a gallywow cacophony rather than a merely epicene convergence of attitude for equity above polity that is hardly polite. As a penitent hibernal rejoinder against the clerical critics of religiosity becoming conflated with artistic masterworks of oligomania I offer my rogation for atonement because the melismatic art I fashion leads to the vogue enchantment of the noosphere for the soteriological bedrock of fastened intellectual endeavor that traverses planes of an engorged soul without a gulf of conscience leaden by distracted discernment leading to a hypostasized apostasy from the religious scruples I rigorously uphold but that I vacillate away from because I want to entrench an irenic world for the francketor dash towards a superlative enrichment of mind above matter for the victorias of soul above the pettiness of the dim humdingers of the banal lifeless squabbles of martexts beyond the hospitable welcome of martians. For the naysayers that don’t understand the ironic irenic circularity of gainsay becoming rebarbative to this artistic flourish of supersensible equipoise with an approximated histrinkage lagged by temporal deficiency they should not abhor the talisman of an ergotall genius but rather marvel at the burlesque cineaste connotation of enamored youthful spirits becoming novel because they stride above the cascades of crestfallen apathy of plodding languor. This is a definitive new artform for the niche crowd so don’t dismiss it as gobbledygook because it serves the purpose to enchant creative spirits and test minds that might be more nimble than resourceless. Wearisome by demiurges of distraction the thorny imbroglio of industry is a whiplash of nativism belonging to the throb of pulsated penury that is neither valedictory nor penultimate but tertiary in oblong variegated menageries of perfidy for collapsed enormities of jumboism lost on inclement stoichiometry that is sejungible from crambazzles of findrouement that are squaloid enthralled raptures of humdingers of rippled hunks of parched nebbich pataphysics because the circuit of conditioned reward is a rebarbative tether to the catchpole exploitative erratum of harbingers of hungry happenstance rather than continual enchantment. The crumple of squaloid sebastomania a distant figment of adscititious schadenfreude of dilettantism of flonky smardagine streaks of whemmled anxieties unduly provoked by calamities of presstungular intorgurent toonardical deprived cartels of repcrevel pursuit with labial senses embedded in deft incondite inquiries against seismotic jostle over the rubble of scaffolded jengadangle above the rot of contranatant sleek suffrage for the chattel of elemental realism becoming a heroic temple for glory without the vetust errundle of dismal disco attuned only to the spurts rather than a startled commerstargal of alienation leads to a plumber’s irony of atomic humdingers of natural equipoise with litotes of scrawny rings of gollendary piracy. The valorous incondite bricolage of a ****** cineaste barnstorm inoculated from conflagrations of the flagitious reprisal of prevenance of ferial fastuous feats of furlongs of brittle certainty above the tentative glaze of aced pokerish promenades to summit the craggy because the salebrosity of the pitch is also the venue for the sphairistic tentpoles of a new tabernacle of spectacular ecstasy in obvious punitive damage to puritan pilgrimage to mechanized obelisks of sardanapalian betrayal of histories of seizure rather than naturism of erasure that is a totemic recall of strollows of lonesome tributaries to tribunes of steam rather than saunas of lickerish leverage because the gladiatorial is a zugzwang with the deliberate infernal shibboleths of the disinclined people dislodged by carnality that depose sicarians of science because of militarized enmity against the whangams of taghairm becoming the outmoded dupe of dopamine that is now serotinous rather than flanged with glaring hearsay. The serpentine winds of windlass sometimes are a conclave of convex itineration against the steady husbandry of docile domiciles of mannequin sedentary postures for posterized infamy rather than manufactured oneiromancy that is the staddle for every phony contraption of qwartion obviously specious but interrogated by the dubiety of perseverance of inclement curiosity. Yet again we sweep the soaring ligaments of rigid ramshackle bletonism that hawkshaws countermand by division of enumerated nadirs pivoted against the perpended weight of the prolonged zeniths of grit above substance that infatuates myopia but glares against mountebanks of apothecary leverage. We fight against the boxcar traindeque of sejungible traipses through stereodimensional rebuffs of known drogulus surpassing unknowable reticence of citadels that are owleries for the seedy cities they sprawl with incontinence for a drab raft of intertesselation rather than a refined quintessence of alchemy achieved by allotment by brackish nescience becoming a blinding ray of destitution engraved by petrified decalcified rudiments of realism. The somber timbre of delirifacient ruinous rumination malingers in humdrum salience as it scrawls the tragedians lament of distal eventful frets of declassified nomenclature that swoon with lugubrious harbingers of burglary the licentious dolts affixed to the brays of pauperized regions of future proximity too remote to paralyze the morale of any cantonment on record by litotes of profound remembrance of a backfire delope for cineaste conflation of marstion slore for educated reprisal of desiccation. We spelunk in mimicry the dingy duplicity of double-takes in regelation that owe homage to the percolated hearsay of cartels that operate parsecs beyond our congeners of germane lustration in remission by deontology for soteriology alone but not vacated of the stilts of turnverein ragged mannequins of desolate remorse for the dearth of hived and hemmed hibernation in a fitful frenzy of revision above precision. We see abundant lactose intolerance as a sidereal lovelorn lament of sematic entrenchment without the scourge of roosted war against abrasive brawn exercised in flexible limbers of the novel filigrees of truth revelatory of consideration rather than impregnated with the perfidy of amaranthine static of regaled stagnation that flickers with the marinas of congregated leaps as a signature of the artistic license of byzantine traipses of contempered primacy in the soup kitchen of a lapse in sabotaged sobriety. Immune from displaced donnism is the resurgence of bonanza from checkered propinquities affixed to a finite placard of spacetime that owes to stretchgraves a profound depth of contrition that carmelized apocrypha lapse on lissome whilded dignotions of contrarian raillery of loose nihilism rather than anchor to the eremites of fact found in eclipsed culmination for momentous harps of the Jubal for new centuries inseminating the populated presence of spectral imagination with contorted melodies that spawn an ingenuous quest to swoon abiding heavens for celestial ears. It is conspicuous that artifacts for raiders elope with circuitous routes of heated sedimentary incubations with a comatose creativity that seeds the ferial junediggle with a supercalendar of confections that are intermittently apportioned in heydays of culture to the sad lament of the obvious rather than the obviated dare of audacity above conglomerations of spirited luxuriance in tasty memorial to a pinnacle above all other notions of sentinel apostasy. The greater atrocity of rogated ambitions against the gainsay of iconoduly of the rood and rude crucifixion of resurrected clarity found in the enamel of akashic answers to questions fashioned by kneaded cosmetology of delicate ***** cotqueans of limber above precedent and license beyond the finkly limp of lolloped saccharine blitzkreigs of the jalousies of the ajar vaticination of hurdled glaikeries of epicene impediment is that we ****** ink above the gesture of the quills of rocky abrasion found in limitrophes of yachted celebration because of rabid coherence above the wherefores of gadzookerie because the gladdest scaldabanco is the demented persiflage of collateral catastrophe beyond any humane degree of schadenfreude for persecution that backbites the anteric antlers of the jesters that mock the procession of liturgical secularism jeering at grapholagnia while lagging in imaginative spurts of lament for incalculable damage to the Pandora’s box of effluvia that meet stiff tabernacles of betrayal because of the Judaic foresight rather than as an alarmed Marxism scared of an agrarian interdependence of worlds cadged more prone to moral dogma exercised with latitude rather than unscrupulous brays of fisticuffs of shambolic shams of ruin. We glance at the perfidies of voyeurism with pertinacity and recalcitrant bellipotent bedlam that evokes the illicit grandeval whangams of quixotic whartonized arraigned estrangement from legalism to warp time to its own superlative turpitude that is reckless but contingent upon the consummation of destiny only to the extent of original witness rather than the decay of perpetuity wrought by the persiflage of envious militarized mandarisms of enmity aimed to derail the elevators of the noosphere from stratospheric emergence in now perspicuous clarity above the pother of the indelible sacrilege of the stygian polymathy of the astute enemies of the proper comstockery rather than the negligent butchers of an enantiodromia of oligarchies of lewdness that are severed appendages to Anti-Semitism and by extension a marginalized Islamophobia that demands by exigency the complete erasure of all attempts at sacrilege exercised in rampant dereliction of dutiful upkeep of the upright morality against the cadge of ulterior ploys of a broader hedonism that would only piggyback because of the license of ryesolagnus rather than because of a complete signatory endorsement of the liberated agenda of free thought conquered through the conquest of God but the ultimate conquistadors of time through sennet and even negligent rebec to memorialize the triumphant pantheon of growth rather than rankled regress into prolonged hatred ingeminated by atrocious tortfeasors that belong nowhere but the ashen heap of exorcised damnation. The perdition inherent to the system that craves chattel rather than sartorial versions of syncretic chatter is the malefaction of renegades bent on tornadic vulcanization to a demoralized wragapole of docility hitched to the vandalism of pilloried tarantisms of moral lapse leading the sheep into sheepish resignation over the accordion of Original Sin that annoys because the bridewells are brideless birds of the chavish of warbled uncertainty wicked because of snuffed tabacosis of mitigations of evil by the evildoers for the rejoinder against the Republic by rendering the **** a platonic ploy of karezza if only punctuated by solitary ******* reticulated by exsibilation that is contorted when you consider the ****** act a marvel rather than a condemnation of the vicarious involvement in normative ****** creations not of any higher artform but of an evolved theology that might perpend the issue of Christianized ******* that is videographic as a sanction worthy of charter and an impending simultaneous comstockery to protect the decency of the simultagnosia of a diverse and divisive mispronunciated time bent against its greatest heroes for the malice of schadenfreude built into the system of language itself by germane consideration to flagellate the wrong country for the  greatest wrongs known to the realm of religious observance. The pederasty of enclaves is the bailiwick of mutinies of selective mutism incurred by the vilified into compulsive shrieks of kallince as a ribbacle of protean ratiocination paralyzed by the coherent vulnerability incurred by the exchequer of polluted conditions of enslavement by the stretchgraves of the chavish of too many pulpits in the throng of a decisive jaundice against the victors of history because of the obsolescence of the historical fossils of outmoded jealousy. Now to the eupathy of all generations should we better conserve situations against the encroaching wesperm of the marstions of ulterior feminism grimacing at the pleckigger of manhood and decriminalizing the taboo against the enantiodromia of miscegenation to the folly of shepherds of idiotic ploys to rear the mediocre rebec of warbled intimations of cultural impotence that should proselytize both the oligogenics beyond ecbolic atrocity and the adoptive ****** of the anglosphere through its smart and dapper monopoly threatened by the commerstargal of retromorphosis exhibited by the demassification of culled syntalities into aboriginal epigenetic kennels of subservience to a piggybacked system where if you are among the attentive scrutiny of the audience that both perceives apperception metacognitively with francketor precision you are thereby inoculated from lean herbivores of cultish occultism metaphorically in the annealed agitprop for resourcelessness that never ends in the radioglare of revisionism because of the prevenance of the vergers who manage the Manciples rather than tend to the vainglory of the potagers around the hegemunes of an unwarranted and puritan celibacy of conceptual sterility in a world fashioned by engouements for sanguine hopes for a consanguinity that might portend into dynasty but lopsided in its contrite missives of scandal will never provide a valedictory rendition on politically checkered zugzwangs of ulterior scientism against the lettered freedom of bibliognosts to aggrieve against the gloaming vacuum of sartorial damages to Dagon among the populated metropolis of corporate servitude that will thus collapse out of rebarbative backlash for its diminutive economies of scope and pretenses of largesse of scaled down collectivism into a heap of corporate rubble rather than judicious bonanza. In every considered word in this Biblbical warning against the trekleador of the amazonian paradise against the travail of junediggles of obligation among the frenzied fretful tocsins of farcical utopianism meeting the inclement reprisal of sanctioned duplicity in frikmag beneath the truculence of mobilized alacrity to syndicalism endeared to capitalism rather than the converse logical apostrophes that are imponent overhangs of an already conquered feral sphere of nomadic imagination into a checkmate of a socially validated future clinched by foresight and the wragapole nature of the insensate docility of those prone to officious naturism before the attempted monolith of the mountebanks of the quixotic towers of panopticon that are a regelation of unchecked ambitions verging or diverging too valorously against themselves but also prone to a simultagnosia that berates the robust picaresque swandamos that curtail the curglaff of malcontent with the recoil of perseverance that reneges in tiresome defeat of a demilitarized population that should always be grisly rather than denatured by the overhang of the incumbent nudism of certain futures becoming to finicky in impetuous lurid specters of abhorrent exercises in chantage waged against sardanapalians in all countries regardless of merits or demerits. The redstrall of enlightenment is not otiose operatively in recursive backlash against nominalism which sweedles the weedledge of a new acquiescence timid enough to mangle a prosodemic wave of celibacy propitiated by the succedaneum of profligate vicarious lickerish ****** appetites that diminish that natural instinct into either barbarous experiments in lechery too inconvenient to apprise honestly but looming aghast at the moral tip-toes around the Original Sin that binds us to predatory lapse and retromorphosis rather than the maintenance of a mainlined trimpoline confidence in a normative wave of galvanized interface against the overpromiscuous provisions for the lackaday resentment of alienated millennialism relishing the sennet of nostalgia but bereft of the heave from moral slumbers of an invented celibacy intermediary to demassification but attenuated by the omphalism of astute gravitas in socially engineered balks at the emergence of singularity in personalized cacotopia becoming a metaphor for the broadsided shipwreck of an inured world pasteurized into acerbic jolkers of foofaraw rather than the real-life relish against still-framed ostentation that distorts the granular artifice of the natural into supernatural fixations with gaudy swarpollock indecently exposed. To the finkly flonky puritanism of the wiseacres of those who say sacerdotal duty cannot diverge from entelechies of secular insight I behold the marvel of timespun elegance as the marvel of God’s convergence for the happenstance of the serendipity of magnified time lived completely in the plenipotentiary pangs of evanescence that catapults subliminal meaning to memorialize this indelible seminal watershed in a clear visionary establishment of history. Most belong to oligomania but I relent in the completely sardonic intortions of aspects of sebastomania in complete equipoise with the clairvoyant clarity of centralized perspective but the dragomans will interpret that last phase with underminnow because it belies the granular intent of the fin de seicle advent of a new generation that is an homage to the hallowed Judaic theory of millennialism as the return of glorified entitlement yet tentative in its overhang but never malicious in its grapnel of the fewterers of amazing convergence of clairvoyance. The tangential rebuke of the absurd oxyholotron of paradoxical puritan superstition that assumes a fustilug generation will cement a farsighted clarity that subsumes generative prowess lingers with fixations on the figments of the apocryphal version of the truer version of revelations manifesting right before our eyes for neither the sinistral or the dexterous amplivagance of God’s universal message by the superorganism of messianic purpose belittled by the agents of humbled perdition not alone of martexts that are martles but also by the shepherded fears of the ignorant rather than the insipid because the will never be outmoded only enhanced by the acceleration of proliferative technologies that pave a macadamized future of prosperity rather than the tarnish of the miscreants of Tyre. I owe all providence to God because he fastened his scrutiny on my autodidactian romance clambered into restive ontocyclic peccadillo that points to Pinocchio more than to the truest compass of an omnified salvation of the piggybacked purpose of synergies of geotechnic mastery that elevates the cause of God and liberates us from the stings of dangerously vapid pauperization of the intellectual frontiers by dangled prevarications of desultory incontinence forestalled by avoidant developments in proper fewterers of ambition. By the axiomatic Brocards of time travel the unstated ignotism of deranged circuses of stupidity congregated around the swelter of dismissal is a barnacle to the mofussil fossilization of sentiment that remarks ironically about the petty indelible moments but not the entelechies of a unified front for liberated equity and considerate tender of diverse quorums that shepherd rather than intern the noosphere into the burgeoned resurgence of a humane endeavor for the everlasting enlightenment of an ameliorated humanity and beyond that. By the bailiwick exerted by the plenipotentiary omphalism still participant to the quorum I hereby declaratively implore the abrogation of pernicious grapholagnia as the peremptory sacrilege that needs exorcism for our times and yet delegated of stature I urge hortatory and imperative action for the expurgation of all tortfeasor illegally obtained ******* of unsolicited voyeurism to be completely regarded as the ultimatum of temerity against carnal restraint and banished from the human registry to uphold the strategic interests of the United States of America. I understand that there is not fricative monolith and never will I lean for that conquest but as a humbled member of the omphalism that constitutes the sacred endeavor of sociogenesis grounded on God with collegialism upheld that a geotechnically optimized species needs to refrain from lewd perfidies against commonplace justice to restrain the fumatorium of unwarranted envy from poisoning the pervious minds of people that congregate in defensive posture but not definitive gesture. I also beseech a portentous  settlement with  I relent from avarice but it is not a superposition of authority just a suggestive glance at requited justice but my grangull chavish of circumlocution naivety will meet the most deliberate Sardonic Sc(p)orn in these times of need. These next words are paused and already fathomed by the supernal recursion of the iterative metaphysics of recumbent retrospection hinged on hindsight to proclaim without any hints of attempted subterfuge of the clarity of a Democratic Republic that my words while forceful do not constitute a breech in public conduct even while vaulted with a minor rapacity I rebuke and atone for even when many others might find recourse to expiate my jalousies to the windowed world not of vindictiveness but out of the cursory and emphasis on cursory justice needed to vouchsafe my continued security and inoculation from the pothers of obviously shortsighted pleonexia which will obviously be fleered as a slight euthymia glazed on self-interest while tone-deaf to the checkered layers of entrapment by a confederate whiplash but a native grit never to enslave but to empower humanity. I am deeply lugubrious over the specter of the trembled quaky ground the penury of spiritual loss rejoinders against my candidacy for high esteem but not peremptory decisiveness in active service to yield to a supererogatory attempt for felicity to alight in my life not out of material greed but the gratuity of serviceable missions that play a dicey gamble with a frenzied manumission attempt that is essentially that a parsed manumission for eleutherian pragmatica to chide as naive but alarmed senectitude of the old order prevaricates with the din of postured hurdles of gladiatorial outrage that weans me away from the ataraxia for my fumbled stream brooking intolerance for years on the ballast of collective endeavor. Nevertheless, lets speak more on God’s providence because in this esteemed moment of watershed emergence of the fully engorged but rarely gluttonous soul I have found an equitable peace with supernal and superlative authority in God that grants stewardship and tutelage to the audience that will eventually through proper discrimination be delegated as higher than the ignorant bystanders of fleered snide disdain for the abnormous and bletcherous dimples of an otherwise circuitous dalliance with an unconventional path towards destiny rather than some windlass of opportunism for, if it were not for my unabetted genius and the provisions of divine appointment based on a kindly generous deference to preterition axiomatic in perceived time by the strictures of the convergent past and the divergent future, I would never find a role of partial authorship of a widely heralded tome I will one day publish to either the exsibilation of the antiquarians of hidebound irrefragable ontocyclic convictions or the cloveryield of an appreciative gratitude to the God I serve and I make no notions of any hostility towards any party of petty dismissal because I expect their recumbent recoil but I apologize for hubris and extenuate the follies of the refinery of character as I ascend into a figurative ennobled step into soulhood that exceeds my former dismal limits by such staggering orders of magnitude it magnifies the questions of ontology in sentience rather than beckons the alarmism of the swarpollock of tripwires that can easily withstand the tempests of scorn. The uproar of commotion of blood sanctified by the thirsty rain for the desiccated faucet of dramaturgy in reprisal for docimasy is the integral linchpin of the biocentric rebec reasting on the primitive hymns to festoon the curtains of defenestrated primitive relics of shady attempts at officious balks of the privatized empire of the alytarchs among the earwigs that simper the culled delicacy of sensible notions into the congeners of prioritization emphasized by quantulated concerns veiled by elaborative synquests that burrow the sulcate grooves of hidden hedonism for the chic magistrates of financial swoon or swayed vestiges of a forgotten calumny of betrayal by the coming-of-age sprouts of hedged dismal dismissal of a lugubrious prospect for an otherwise revitalized dressage of emoluments to glory that lurked in penumbras by rigged enumeration but found their prominence by the gravity of sensation-seeking frissons of alterations between benighted glory and the famish of artificial tethers to the yoke of caramel and chocolates as a dainty ploy of yearning persiflage also a dranger of camouflage for flagitious percolations of the invidious rumors of imposture and the groveling contempt of the known drogulus remiss in denial of its own requited date when the powers of miscarriage become ecbolic to their own lagging languor of lisps of linguistic ramparts of a revival of hypertrophy for hyperactive foibles in inclement weather. Ok beyond the absenteeism of the presence of perceived amphigory there is great heft in the nominal notion that dogma is mobilized in serviceable goods of merchandized mirrors of glazed remission of moral tender because of stoked curiosity unhinged from the pragmatica of duty. We need forbearance in empathy that loves the lovable rather than envies the deposed despotism of clever wiseacres veiled in delicate symmetry with conscience that is the quill of a wellspring deeper than any imaginary vagary can approximate because impossible events punctuate time with literacy rather than incontinence of drivel that is ambitious but ignoble by stately coherence. To the critics of the baragnosis of limited apperception my words are blatant amphigories but they only possess enough ken to fathom an average orbit of suboptimal outcomes rather than transdimensional chances at chess outnumbered by checkers by incidental design of clever ploys of rejoinder that is by design arcane for the arcadia of the pristine arcade of future possibilities  As I am purblind by psychorrhagy I am incompetent in my radiopresence because I am a departed spectral figment above fricative hisses and whorfian glares of mediocre rebec for primitive shibboleth above prized taurine anglophonic convictions that superimpose the dignified clarity of willpower above the dragnets of supersolid conflations of puffery. Ok I admit a lapse of transmission by the vesicles of numbered murders of henpecked owleries of the senectitude of sepulchral magnetism of slumber over awakened alacrity of mobilism fashioned in portentous flipcraves of additive immobility of fixed vectors seen through parvanimity that actually just swivel in circular retorts against themselves without the elaborative potential and the belabored traipse of the rabid taradiddles of sensationalism marauding as a defalcated burglary of emotion for useless psephology that predicates nothing but a slight budge in the autarky of structuralism which is never sclerotic but stammered by articulations of the overt when the covert aligns by an alien agenda that is subservient to magnified priorities of warped swirk of telescopic prevenance and hedged boschveldts of elemental and I stress the strain of the elemental for the drogulus of sensational proclamation by executive ****** but supererogatory minutiae of fascism cloaked by earwigs of repcrevel repute beyond memorialized reputation. We need to renege the southern pacts to the Argentine mandarism of reticular vitiations of cinematography waged against creative visionaries of free speech because of the succedaneum of furtive endeavors at optimization by compromised degrees of artistic licentiousness even that is never lewd about sacred roods but boorish in blockbuster rather than kempt in collectivist brunt of the timid bronteum of agitprop that lurks in the imminent future of cinema. America needs to retain the disclosed but still-frame inertia of catapulted declassification that ennobles the fliction but also the vilified distilled truths only the keen of acumen will sensibly identify so that the magnet of earwigs gravitates to the belabored analysis of astute congeners to relevant tributaries to the ocean of adventitious swarpollock in the procedural autopsy of the auditorium for neither a chattel nor a crystallized nurture against the matriotic insistence of decorum. Essentially the succubus of prosthetic protensive docimasy of imaginative logic predicated in visionary apperception of the unseen in immediacy is the longeur of reticent endeavors to pasteurize the oculus rifts of futurity to synergize with the entelechy of proactive somnambulism that sensitizes the profoundly capable but never bereaves the inept of direct interface with communicable dominion with fantasia that is an operative artifice of a beguiled lurch without purged retrograde immaterial delusion that endangers visceral momentum toward new directives of the outmantled zugzwang in elementary exercises of swaddled posterity free by irenic idolatry never orphaned by a widowed imagination. The swirk of hypostasized probabilities in an invented swipe at wide-eyed but star-crossed turnvereins for the imaginative leaps in the performative depend on the delicate swivels of declaration independent from culinary clarity of macroscian travesty rather than pinhokes of naufragues of maudlin laudable applause by the canned nurture of speculative intimation that sadly severs the curglaff of whispered intimacy over the confidence we have in artifice to teach the wragapole both matriotism and sensitive reninjasque poker without incurred damages beyond the clarified visionary potential of graphic protheses immediately perceptible to the acumen of judicious polymathy indoctrinated by the rigor of scientific grooms for melliferous parsecs of advanced minutiae of dark horses to nomadic license beyond ravenous **** palindromes of hushed vigor to the declared by scacchic deliberation to usher in crass but crestfallen synectics. The future of God is secure in the fathomed furlongs of cubic citadels of pasteurized paradise found in corralled reluctance without remonstrance of poetic belletrist resounding with clangor rather than swerved nimble potions to avert future calamities in war by the expansive frontier of a civilized metropolis of the mobilized imagination hypostasizing newfangled naturism that is neither mofussil nor a fossilized relic of scrappy schlep. The nonchalance of parlance swims in arenaceous bunkers of drivel that congregate in the turnverein of futuristic opportunism found in the muzzled directives of orchestras of departed clarity no longer so insular in its bossy imperatives but clarified with hearsay and blushed blarney not the blench of widened divulgence of minatory malice that incurs the punitive curglaff of frenetic retchallops of winsome specters becoming opportune pragmatics of a semantic network of dirigisme that through sheer horsepower overcomes the sting of ubiquity or the hollowed headless vesicles of urbacity disenfranchised by degrees of impertinent pertinacity of deposed disclosure rudimentary in sedentary simplicity against matriotic duty to remain guarded by an ommateum that fathoms the abyss but never wages reckless adventurism. Prevenance is the key to absolution but staggered implements of dearth preempt the ecbolic corrigenda of castigation by hindered lurches of veiled errundle belonging to a central trimpoline interposition of fungible felicity for not only a regional fanfare but a global scale of competitive endeavor of cleverage beyond scopes but beneath scrutinized mutiny of embanked polymathy stranded by the redstrall of industrious slavering dogmatism to a servile ***** rather than the boomerang of pressure to asseverate limitless bounds of planned obsolescence to engorge but not intimidate checkered reticence in the sinew of the musculature of creative parlance above petty finicky demiurges of latitudes in amphibious annealed glorification. Temperatures gauged by the thrombosis of thermolysis in psychotaxis gouged by hucksters of taciturn bamboozles of teetotalism are neither scourge nor foe of the strategic advent of the fascination of prospective investment a boondoggle that offsets the bonfire of retorted whimpers of foudroyant ripples of wildfire perspicacity strung by the catchpole of ubiquity in the time-honed decorum of genteel upright raconteurs of volleyed neglect by strict mandate will uproariously profit in remission from knowledgeable exacerbation rather than tomfoolery by filial tithes to foreign wardens of conspicuous levitation above gimcracks by the syrts of percolated filigrees of belabored chantage exerted over the tide of perfidy in contained discernment will stall and extinguish the prideful jostle of profane blasphemy against tacit covenants of blackguarded justice served by platitude better than by insubordinate quivers that quake because bears bounce checkered checks rather than anoint the sigillum of protective vouchsafes of exchequers smartly dapper rather than dimpled in flagrant brays of castigation and thus secure employment of instrumental advent rather than desecrated conventicles of remission.
Now it is time to ventilate divine knowledge that transfiguration means a humane liberation rather than a sanctimony of tirade against dumose proliferations of fluminous imaginary tracts of the probable rather than the certain for the elevators of sanitized wealth to bequeath greater moral clarity found in the contrary submission of authoritative parents to shepherd guarded wealth in proper husbandry of calendrical affairs to optimize the work-life balance so the biocentric imperative for sustenance renounces the moral obesity of groundless backlash in austerity and endless cycles of remorse rather than a tender mollification of sentiments away from universal kumbayas and in favor more stridently of a system that withholds the agitprop of statist indoctrination of a mollycoddle ****** within individual mandates of variable agendas of countries beyond the borderline fluid dynamics of the foibles of moral venial folly but insensitive to the dynamism of the robust virility of a wayspayed world swaying by riddled wildfires of conflated puerile stages of ludic indoctrination to the rampant perfidy of exemplary incontinence waged by Hollywood upon unsuspecting victims of inconsiderate indoctrination that doesn’t vouchsafe the prerogatives of heteronormative values that should outshine not a parochial vehement hatred or a clorence of unconditional tolerance but a chided quarantine of variegated syntalities divorced from integration rather than fostered in communal depths of bound lettered ambition found in the allegorical power of Biblical wisdom expounded by the florilegium of the religious and secular canon.
To serve God rather than the perceived taradiddle of speculative mammon deprived of classifiable certainties but hunched proclivities we need to exhort a proper seesaw between restraint in vision and exuberance in creative license so that the pivot of the moralized world leads to an insistent trust of watchdogs that through trust revolve the gravity of morale upon the upswing of liberty rather than incidental follies of imaginative demiurges of partition but blinkered hubris in stately objectives to the demur of participant malingering naysayers and nyejays. The moral gravity of the situation requires us to rotate our hype from the fervor of panic into the resolve of fortitude that relishes family and filial duty rather than resents because of breedbate instinct the flickers of smoldering rebels that are tamed in their revelry when they follow the moral prerogative of disciplined ambition in creativity not insubordinating against insurmountable limits but reasonable adjustments to a scaffold of potential that is skyscraping more than before even if its too close to the ground for comfort and consolation. Relativism is the enemy of progress because envy seeds alienation and comparison should be eschewed because we need to burrow in compassionate embrace of the cherished loves rather than the exaggerated proximity of provincial fears becoming global juggernauts of mercy upon the merciful and I convoke a global prayer for the attenuation of the virus that spreads sadly too far for comfort today. I purge out of solidarity with suffering as the milquetoast in me identifies the disconcerted avenues of avetrols trying to find a way through the forest of rumination without gingerly superlative prerogatives outweighing the poise of balance in shields of honor rather than badges of shame. We must by moral imperative greet strangers in public places like parks rather than strangulate the percolation of affection because of regnant distractions because in this congenial way we will find a common fraternity with fellow man while soldiering on to find truth in God’s word in the proper temperature for genuflection because I admit foibles but I relent not in the chase to redintegrate myself spiritually to lead a charge without trespass of fundamental dignity over the whoppers of indignation some of us might feel because of the penury of divergence rather than the private penalty of convergence for an ulterior solidarity of purpose. I need to emerge into the humanity of compassion to showcase that virtuosity can exist without obsession over one individual because God beseeches a pantheon of observation rather than the gripes of an envied nuisance independent from normal human concerns that ripple with ecstasy because of normative human contrition over the leeway on vacillated opinions that might underwhelm those disposed by prizes of inurement. We should shelve these notions of a supersolid conscience because only in the humility of the profound simplicity of elemental postulates can we achieve complete synchrony with a syndicate that enthralls both divergent and convergent movements that partially offset on the side of convergence in some communes while otherwise countermanded in others in contrarian ways and the favor of the balance depends on the perspective of the flanged acculturation of the participant in a world that doesn’t need flayed excoriation as much as it deserves proper exercise of adoration of the admirable rather than the desecration of the abominable. I return with the greatest jubilation of a reninjasque jaunty streak that hearkens the sennet and maybe the leanings of the senate to the fanfare of adoration for life and gratitude bestowed by the stewardship of God and his divine purpose to inseminate my life with purposeful meaning and happy happenstance that is a stroke of glory. I muster the resolve to traipse in the solitude of my cavern the blessings of divinity bequeathed by the departed forefathers who never intended bossy insularity of dogma to be a stricture of rigors of iconoduly but rather a consecrated wit with the persiflage of conversant tones of labile and lissome gallantry just waiting to alight upon the affectionate dance with dalliance of a philandered hope for a purified love hopefully never profaned by the pangs of scandal (note the sardonic pun) because rejoice is the gift of Heaven upon this culmination of purpose above the dross of shipwreck elevated in folly but stranded in the throes of rumination enough to hedge the boursocrats and try to inoculate the world from further panicky divisions of hypemongers of simpered precaution becoming a financial pandemic that deserves pause and poise but should not protrude above the glistening promise of the eternal wellspring of the vineyards of salvation blooming because enhanced sapience converted the flock of shepherds to tend to those sheepish in deficiency to wield a newer curiosity to replace a saddened lament not by acquiescent abandon but by the solidarity of interfaces of love replacing cast-iron idolatries I too am guilty of for the cordslave generation of itinerant distractions that wager on modicums rather than appraise bonanzas. Safety is predicated on the idea that resources should never be glazed but always apportioned with optimism because if you examine history irrational panics have always and always rebounded because of exigent actions taken by governments to restore confidence in liquidity rather than snide dismal dismissals of economic projections based on bounded rigged betrayals of primarily a global panic that a profoundly promethean intellectual verve could capitalize on its heyday to gouge people against the insensate balkanization of the future by an alienation of formidable scarecrow of invented fatalism imploding upon itself to obviate its own existence by the insistence on free thought to domineer and tower over the doldrums of a vacant man that is now occupied by the largesse of humane endeavor for a messianic voyage that consummates time itself its own captain and is partially centripetal around the juncture of All Saints Day 2008 because of its seminal significance in ushering in a new era of liberation. This justification is a gnomic axiomatic herculean ****** that catapulted generativity in creative endeavor to coalesce around an Army of Me not because of the futilitarianism embedded in its flagrant flagitious mockery of traipsed lyricism borrowed from Bjork but rather showcases the flavork of the flavenickers of ribald coarse revolution that is no longer balderdash to Bald Eagles but the prized retribution of the inviolable scruples demolished by deracinated moral relativism balking at raltention because of persnickety and tyrannical transparency that prepossesses over the lifeless livid Potemkin  Village  of Astroturf complaint malingering in pederasty over its own depraved sinuous course of diverted restraint cemented by the scythes of Village People politics benumbed over militarized betrayals that incur and invoke the diablerist prose of anonymuncle desperado mavericks that sizzle in hibernaculum to depose the autarky of seasoned growth rather than unseasonable diatribes of vitriol poisoning the posture of gentility by decree rather than by deeds of homogenized pasteurization against Lactose Intolerant Leftism and dogged doggerel of pasty subversive paranoiac hederaceous envy spawning a vituperative summation of a beatific felicity. We need to convene upon better tranceception in this axiomatic gratuity of God

cramped in the close quarters of my logic
there's a painting party going on.

but i've brought some shellac to seal
the tender places, the cut out picture postcards
of memories i saved, savor, slave over so carefully.
their disconnected connections splayed upon my walls.

i should paint over them, i know.
i should cover them over with a nice, bright white.

but the colors, the patterns, they
are a blueprint on the bones of my house.

they are my proof, my logical proof of illogical theories.
my picture postcards of impossible possibilities.

the decoupage of dreams' dalliance
dances upon these walls, definitively,

the cogent evidence of our coup de coeur.

O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warned
The coming of their secret foe, and ’scaped,
Haply so ’scaped his mortal snare:  For now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss
Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell:
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place:  Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridian tower:
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began.
O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven’s matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome still paying, still to owe,
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then
O, had his powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferiour Angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition!  Yet why not some other Power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven’s free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
O, then, at last relent:  Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent.  Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of Hell.
With diadem and scepter high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery:  Such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned submission swore?  Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall:  so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace;
All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;
Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven’s King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.
Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;
Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld.
For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear.  Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:
Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down
The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured, more than could befall
Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce
He marked and mad demeanour, then alone,
As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
Access denied; and overhead upgrew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;                        

Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:
On which the sun more glad impressed his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
That landskip:  And of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair:  Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils.  As when to them who fail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest; with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,
Who came their bane; though with them better pleased
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;
But further way found none, so thick entwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed
All path of man or beast that passed that way.
One gate there only was, and that looked east
On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,
At one flight bound high over-leaped all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet.  As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regained, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect, what well used had been the pledge
Of immortality.  So little knows
Any, but God alone, to value right
The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.
Beneath him with new wonder now he views,
To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more,
A Heaven on Earth:  For blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in the east
Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
Of where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar:  In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordained;
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mould high raised
Upon the rapid current, which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Watered the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy errour under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrowned the noontide bowers:  Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste:
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall
Down the ***** hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
Her crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the eternal Spring.  Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove
Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired
Castalian spring, might with this Paradise
Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle
Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,
Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,
Hid Amalthea, and her florid son
Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye;
Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard,
Mount Amara, though this by some supposed
True Paradise under the Ethiop line
By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock,
A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote
From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend
Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind
Of living creatures, new to sight, and strange
Two of far nobler shape, ***** and tall,
Godlike *****, with native honour clad
In naked majesty seemed lords of all:
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,
(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,)
Whence true authority in men; though both
Not equal, as their *** not equal seemed;
For contemplation he and valour formed;
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him:
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil, down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved
As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.
Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed;
Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame
Of nature’s works, honour dishonourable,
Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind
With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,
And banished from man’s life his happiest life,
Simplicity and spotless innocence!
So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight
Of God or Angel; for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair,
That ever since in love’s embraces met;
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Under a tuft of shade that on a green
Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side
They sat them down; and, after no more toil
Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed
To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease
More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,
Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs
Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline
On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:
The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,
Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;
Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,
Alone as they.  About them frisking played
All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den;
Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw
Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,
To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed
His?kithetmroboscis; close the serpent sly,
Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine
His braided train, and of his fatal guile
Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass
Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,
Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,
Declined, was hasting now with prone career
To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale
Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:
When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,
Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.
O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,
Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright
Little inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue

BOOK I

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. "Why do you wind no horn?' she said
"And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
"We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

"My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

"What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
"I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

"Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

"I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
"And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

"O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, "It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
"Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

"Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
"A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
"O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, "God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  "Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  "You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick. Tell On.

Oisin. Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds



























































­

























Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

"An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust';
And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

#######
BOOK II
#######

NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
"Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said,
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
And her bright body, sang of faery and man
Before God was or my old line began;
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
And how those lovers

WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot,                       *sweet
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath                    grove, forest
The tender croppes and the younge sun                    twigs, boughs
Hath in the Ram  his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages);       hearts, inclinations
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
And palmers  for to seeke strange strands,
To *ferne hallows couth  in sundry lands;     distant saints known
And specially, from every shire's end
Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful Martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen, when that they were sick.                helped

Befell that, in that season on a day,
In Southwark at the Tabard  as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelry
Well nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk, by aventure y-fall            who had by chance fallen
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all,           into company.
That toward Canterbury woulde ride.
The chamber, and the stables were wide,
And well we weren eased at the best.            we were well provided
And shortly, when the sunne was to rest,                  with the best
So had I spoken with them every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made forword* early for to rise,                            promise
To take our way there as I you devise.                describe, relate

But natheless, while I have time and space,
Ere that I farther in this tale pace,
Me thinketh it accordant to reason,
To tell you alle the condition
Of each of them, so as it seemed me,
And which they weren, and of what degree;
And eke in what array that they were in:
And at a Knight then will I first begin.

A KNIGHT there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the time that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalry,
Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy.
Full worthy was he in his Lorde's war,
And thereto had he ridden, no man farre,                       farther
As well in Christendom as in Heatheness,
And ever honour'd for his worthiness
At Alisandre  he was when it was won.
Full often time he had the board begun
Above alle nations in Prusse.
In Lettowe had he reysed, and in Russe,                      journeyed
No Christian man so oft of his degree.
In Grenade at the siege eke had he be
Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie.
At Leyes was he, and at Satalie,
When they were won; and in the Greate Sea
At many a noble army had he be.
At mortal battles had he been fifteen,
And foughten for our faith at Tramissene.
In listes thries, and aye slain his foe.
This ilke worthy knight had been also                         same
Some time with the lord of Palatie,
Against another heathen in Turkie:
And evermore *he had a sovereign price.            He was held in very
And though that he was worthy he was wise,                 high esteem.
And of his port as meek as is a maid.
He never yet no villainy ne said
In all his life, unto no manner wight.
He was a very perfect gentle knight.
But for to telle you of his array,
His horse was good, but yet he was not gay.
Of fustian he weared a gipon,                            short doublet
Alle besmotter'd with his habergeon,     soiled by his coat of mail.
For he was late y-come from his voyage,
And wente for to do his pilgrimage.

With him there was his son, a younge SQUIRE,
A lover, and a ***** bacheler,
With lockes crulle* as they were laid in press.                  curled
Of twenty year of age he was I guess.
Of his stature he was of even length,
And *wonderly deliver, and great of strength.      wonderfully nimble
And he had been some time in chevachie,                  cavalry raids
In Flanders, in Artois, and Picardie,
And borne him well, as of so little space,      in such a short time
In hope to standen in his lady's grace.
Embroider'd was he, as it were a mead
All full of freshe flowers, white and red.
Singing he was, or fluting all the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
Short was his gown, with sleeves long and wide.
Well could he sit on horse, and faire ride.
He coulde songes make, and well indite,
Joust, and eke dance, and well pourtray and write.
So hot he loved, that by nightertale                        night-time
He slept no more than doth the nightingale.
Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceable,
And carv'd before his father at the table.

A YEOMAN had he, and servants no mo'
At that time, for him list ride so         it pleased him so to ride
And he was clad in coat and hood of green.
A sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen
Under his belt he bare full thriftily.
Well could he dress his tackle yeomanly:
His arrows drooped not with feathers low;
And in his hand he bare a mighty bow.
A nut-head  had he, with a brown visiage:
Of wood-craft coud* he well all the usage:                         knew
Upon his arm he bare a gay bracer,                        small shield
And by his side a sword and a buckler,
And on that other side a gay daggere,
Harnessed well, and sharp as point of spear:
A Christopher on his breast of silver sheen.
An horn he bare, the baldric was of green:
A forester was he soothly as I guess.                        certainly

There was also a Nun, a PRIORESS,
That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oathe was but by Saint Loy;
And she was cleped  Madame Eglentine.                           called
Full well she sang the service divine,
Entuned in her nose full seemly;
And French she spake full fair and fetisly                    properly
After the school of Stratford atte Bow,
For French of Paris was to her unknow.
At meate was she well y-taught withal;
She let no morsel from her lippes fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep.
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep,
That no droppe ne fell upon her breast.
In courtesy was set full much her lest.                       pleasure
Her over-lippe wiped she so clean,
That in her cup there was no farthing seen                       speck
Of grease, when she drunken had her draught;
Full seemely after her meat she raught:           reached out her hand
And *sickerly she was of great disport,     surely she was of a lively
And full pleasant, and amiable of port,                     disposition
And pained her to counterfeite cheer              took pains to assume
Of court,* and be estately of mannere,            a courtly disposition
And to be holden digne of reverence.                            worthy
But for to speaken of her conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous,                      full of pity
She woulde weep if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled.
Of smalle houndes had she, that she fed
With roasted flesh, and milk, and *wastel bread.   finest white bread
But sore she wept if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a yarde* smart:                           staff
And all was conscience and tender heart.
Full seemly her wimple y-pinched was;
Her nose tretis; her eyen gray as glass;               well-formed
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red;
But sickerly she had a fair forehead.
It was almost a spanne broad I trow;
For *hardily she was not undergrow.       certainly she was not small
Full fetis* was her cloak, as I was ware.                          neat
Of small coral about her arm she bare
A pair of beades, gauded all with green;
And thereon hung a brooch of gold full sheen,
On which was first y-written a crown'd A,
And after, *Amor vincit omnia.                      love conquers all
Another Nun also with her had she,
[That was her chapelleine, and PRIESTES three.]

A MONK there was, a fair for the mast'ry,       above all others
An out-rider, that loved venery;                               *hunting
A manly man, to be an abbot able.
Full many a dainty horse had he in stable:
And when he rode, men might his bridle hear
Jingeling  in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapel bell,
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.
The rule of Saint Maur and of Saint Benet,
Because that it was old and somedeal strait
This ilke monk let olde thinges pace,                             same
And held after the newe world the trace.
He *gave not of the text a pulled hen,                he cared nothing
That saith, that hunters be not holy men:                  for the text
Ne that a monk, when he is cloisterless;
Is like to a fish that is waterless;
This is to say, a monk out of his cloister.
This ilke text held he not worth an oyster;
And I say his opinion was good.
Why should he study, and make himselfe wood                   *mad
Upon a book in cloister always pore,
Or swinken with his handes, and labour,                           toil
As Austin bid? how shall the world be served?
Let Austin have his swink to him reserved.
Therefore he was a prickasour aright:                       hard rider
Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl of flight;
Of pricking and of hunting for the hare                         riding
Was all his lust, for no cost would he spare.                 pleasure
I saw his sleeves *purfil'd at the hand       *worked at the end with a
With gris, and that the finest of the land.          fur called "gris"
And for to fasten his hood under his chin,
He had of gold y-wrought a curious pin;
A love-knot in the greater end there was.
His head was bald, and shone as any glass,
And eke his face, as it had been anoint;
He was a lord full fat and in good point;
His eyen steep, and rolling in his head,                      deep-set
That steamed as a furnace of a lead.
His bootes supple, his horse in great estate,
Now certainly he was a fair prelate;
He was not pale as a forpined ghost;                            wasted
A fat swan lov'd he best of any roast.
His palfrey was as brown as is a berry.

A FRIAR there was, a wanton and a merry,
A limitour , a full solemne man.
In all the orders four is none that can                          knows
So much of dalliance and fair language.
He had y-made full many a marriage
Of younge women, at his owen cost.
Unto his order he was a noble post;
Full well belov'd, and familiar was he
With franklins *over all in his country,                   everywhere
And eke with worthy women of the town:
For he had power of confession,
As said himselfe, more than a curate,
For of his order he was licentiate.
Full sweetely heard he confession,
And pleasant was his absolution.
He was an easy man to give penance,
There as he wist to have a good pittance:      *where he know

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

'My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

'What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
'I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

'Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

'I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
'And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

'O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
'Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

'Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
'A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
'O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  'Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  'You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick.      Tell on.

Oisin.                 Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds
Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, "Unjust, unjust";
And "My speed is a weariness," falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

Passes not by a day, that many an e-mail
unsolicited for would not stray--
from only Christ knows where--into
my SPAM folder. Some do sail
there to have a prurient stay,
bringing along many a memento
in an argosy of raunchy piquant pictures.

Some convey commerce, insurance or banking
messages; some the cargo of relationship
carry; while another an ad of ******
bears, still another talks about dealership.

Yet stood out Twain. Two diverse
SPAM e-mails have been berthing,
with goatish gaits and sharkish smirks,
in that folder unrelenting and unswerving.

One SPAM e-mail reads: "Why wait--have
an affair with a cheating wife today."

Sweetest SPAM!

Gorging myself on this fetish
fare free of charge. Kittenish
jades, serve me thy dainties of
dalliance enough!

To rock and roll, rolling in the hay,
making merry heaves, does ever crave
this rebellious flesh--yet, this randy
SPAM e-mail's offer offsets much the mind:

"A cheating wife" desiring to find--
for reasons amourous--a dandy,
a sort of cad.

Wondering muse: "A cheating wife"?
What a magic life!

Another SPAM e-mail says its own thus: "View
my pics. Lonely married women--
view **** pics." Indeed and true,
they grip with a serious sudden
poke the soul, like pangs the heart,
those three momentous, wrecking,
wretched words: "lonely married women."

Though content spicy and Libidinous;
yet maddening.
Secret meals seemingly are delicious,
but have a fiery taste.

Where--on Earth, in Mars, or in Hell
are they? Here, in this world they dwell.

Thought marriage is a blessed haven--
a heaven of unfeigned love and lasting bliss.

How could one be married and yet
be alone in life--lonely, who has
crossed over singlehood's borders,
nor is she a widow for bereavement?

A husband did his queen abandon
for a fresh-fangled pawn,
flying away with that new
dove--frittering his fortune away,
as she chirps love in lust songs anew
into his donkey's ears; flattery
displayed, a groovy
guise--

playing ducks and drakes with his riches

until his substance ship sank, like Titanic,
colliding with an iceberg of folly
in the deep of adultery:

making a muck of his wealth.

The flirtatious dollybird no sooner
flitted, then flew abroad at last,
leaving him to drown in the murky
waters of his wreck.


Returned the prodigal man to his hearth
in a sad pickle, with one shirt, one
jean,
and a pair of snickers, to the ever
gracious ***** of his loving Missis--
like a sinner contrite to Jesus.


Whilst a sudden grass widow, his wife
did not covet the companionship,
comforts and copulation
of another flagship--

but was committed to her
vows
to that fun-tossed lugger--
despite the billowy waves,

praying he'd come to his harbour.


The women howbeit in my SPAM folder--
those "cheating wives and lonely married
women", are like Lady Portiphar
pining and yearning for Joseph.

Unread.
Unreplied.

THE PROLOGUE.

This worthy limitour, this noble Frere,
He made always a manner louring cheer                      countenance
Upon the Sompnour; but for honesty                            courtesy
No villain word as yet to him spake he:
But at the last he said unto the Wife:
"Dame," quoth he, "God give you right good life,
Ye have here touched, all so may I the,                         *thrive
In school matter a greate difficulty.
Ye have said muche thing right well, I say;
But, Dame, here as we ride by the way,
Us needeth not but for to speak of game,
And leave authorities, in Godde's name,
To preaching, and to school eke of clergy.
But if it like unto this company,
I will you of a Sompnour tell a game;
Pardie, ye may well knowe by the name,
That of a Sompnour may no good be said;
I pray that none of you be *evil paid;                   dissatisfied
A Sompnour is a runner up and down
With mandements* for fornicatioun,                 mandates, summonses
And is y-beat at every towne's end."
Then spake our Host; "Ah, sir, ye should be hend         *civil, gentle
And courteous, as a man of your estate;
In company we will have no debate:
Tell us your tale, and let the Sompnour be."
"Nay," quoth the Sompnour, "let him say by me
What so him list; when it comes to my lot,
By God, I shall him quiten every groat!                    pay him off
I shall him telle what a great honour
It is to be a flattering limitour
And his office I shall him tell y-wis".
Our Host answered, "Peace, no more of this."
And afterward he said unto the frere,
"Tell forth your tale, mine owen master dear."

Notes to the Prologue to the Friar's tale

1. On the Tale of the Friar, and that of the Sompnour which
follows, Tyrwhitt has remarked that they "are well engrafted
upon that of the Wife of Bath. The ill-humour which shows
itself between these two characters is quite natural, as no two
professions at that time were at more constant variance.  The
regular clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, affected a
total exemption from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction,  except that
of the Pope, which made them exceedingly obnoxious to the
bishops and of course to all the inferior officers of the national
hierarchy." Both tales, whatever their origin, are bitter satires
on the greed and worldliness of the Romish clergy.


THE TALE.

Whilom there was dwelling in my country                 once on a time
An archdeacon, a man of high degree,
That boldely did execution,
In punishing of fornication,
Of witchecraft, and eke of bawdery,
Of defamation, and adultery,
Of churche-reeves, and of testaments,                    churchwardens
Of contracts, and of lack of sacraments,
And eke of many another manner crime,                          sort of
Which needeth not rehearsen at this time,
Of usury, and simony also;
But, certes, lechours did he greatest woe;
They shoulde singen, if that they were hent;                    caught
And smale tithers were foul y-shent,         troubled, put to shame
If any person would on them complain;
There might astert them no pecunial pain.
For smalle tithes, and small offering,
He made the people piteously to sing;
For ere the bishop caught them with his crook,
They weren in the archedeacon's book;
Then had he, through his jurisdiction,
Power to do on them correction.

He had a Sompnour ready to his hand,
A slier boy was none in Engleland;
For subtlely he had his espiaille,                           espionage
That taught him well where it might aught avail.
He coulde spare of lechours one or two,
To teache him to four and twenty mo'.
For, -- though this Sompnour wood be as a hare, --        furious, mad
To tell his harlotry I will not spare,
For we be out of their correction,
They have of us no jurisdiction,
Ne never shall have, term of all their lives.

"Peter; so be the women of the stives,"                          stews
Quoth this Sompnour, "y-put out of our cure."                     care

"Peace, with mischance and with misaventure,"
Our Hoste said, "and let him tell his tale.
Now telle forth, and let the Sompnour gale,              whistle; bawl
Nor spare not, mine owen master dear."

This false thief, the Sompnour (quoth the Frere),
Had always bawdes ready to his hand,
As any hawk to lure in Engleland,
That told him all the secrets that they knew, --
For their acquaintance was not come of new;
They were his approvers privily.                             informers
He took himself at great profit thereby:
His master knew not always what he wan.                            won
Withoute mandement, a lewed man                               ignorant
He could summon, on pain of Christe's curse,
And they were inly glad to fill his purse,
And make him greate feastes at the nale.                      alehouse
And right as Judas hadde purses smale,                           small
And was a thief, right such a thief was he,
His master had but half *his duety.                what was owing him
He was (if I shall give him his laud)
A thief, and eke a Sompnour, and a bawd.
And he had wenches at his retinue,
That whether that Sir Robert or Sir Hugh,
Or Jack, or Ralph, or whoso that it were
That lay by them, they told it in his ear.
Thus were the ***** and he of one assent;
And he would fetch a feigned mandement,
And to the chapter summon them both two,
And pill* the man, and let the wenche go.                plunder, pluck
Then would he say, "Friend, I shall for thy sake
Do strike thee out of oure letters blake;                        black
Thee thar no more as in this case travail;                        need
I am thy friend where I may thee avail."
Certain he knew of bribers many mo'
Than possible is to tell in yeare's two:
For in this world is no dog for the bow,
That can a hurt deer from a whole know,
Bet than this Sompnour knew a sly lechour,                      better
Or an adult'rer, or a paramour:
And, for that was the fruit of all his rent,
Therefore on it he set all his intent.

And so befell, that once upon a day.
This Sompnour, waiting ever on his prey,
Rode forth to summon a widow, an old ribibe,
Feigning a cause, for he would have a bribe.
And happen'd that he saw before him ride
A gay yeoman under a forest side:
A bow he bare, and arrows bright and keen,
He had upon a courtepy of green,                         short doublet
A hat upon his head with fringes blake.                          black
"Sir," quoth this Sompnour, "hail, and well o'ertake."
"Welcome," quoth he, "and every good fellaw;
Whither ridest thou under this green shaw?"                       shade
Saide this yeoman; "wilt thou far to-day?"
This Sompnour answer'd him, and saide, "Nay.
Here faste by," quoth he, "is mine intent
To ride, for to raisen up a rent,
That longeth to my lorde's duety."
"Ah! art thou then a bailiff?" "Yea," quoth he.
He durste not for very filth and shame
Say that he was a Sompnour, for the name.
"De par dieux,"  quoth this yeoman, "leve* brother,             dear
Thou art a bailiff, and I am another.
I am unknowen, as in this country.
Of thine acquaintance I will praye thee,
And eke of brotherhood, if that thee list.                      please
I have gold and silver lying in my chest;
If that thee hap to come into our shire,
All shall be thine, right as thou wilt desire."
"Grand mercy," quoth this Sompnour, "by my faith."        great thanks
Each in the other's hand his trothe lay'th,
For to be sworne brethren till they dey.                        die
In dalliance they ride forth and play.

This Sompnour, which that was as full of jangles,           chattering
As full of venom be those wariangles,               * butcher-birds
And ev'r inquiring upon every thing,
"Brother," quoth he, "where is now your dwelling,
Another day if that I should you seech?"                   *seek, visit
This yeoman him answered in soft speech;
Brother," quoth he, "far in the North country,
Where as I hope some time I shall thee see
Ere we depart I shall thee so well wiss,                        inform
That of mine house shalt thou never miss."
Now, brother," quoth this Sompnour, "I you pray,
Teach me, while that we ride by the way,
(Since that ye be a bailiff as am I,)
Some subtilty, and tell me faithfully
For mine office how that I most may win.
And *spare not for conscience or for sin,             conceal nothing
But, as my brother, tell me how do ye."
Now by my trothe, brother mine," said he,
As I shall tell to thee a faithful tale:
My wages be full strait and eke full smale;
My lord is hard to me and dangerous,                         *niggardly
And mine office is full laborious;
And therefore by extortion I live,
Forsooth I take all that men will me give.
Algate by sleighte, or by violence,                            whether
From year to year I win all my dispence;
I can no better tell thee faithfully."
Now certes," quoth this Sompnour,  "so fare I;                      do
I spare not to take, God it wot,
But if* it be too heavy or too hot.                            unless
What I may get in counsel privily,
No manner conscience of that have I.
N'ere* mine extortion, I might not live,                were it not for
For of such japes will I not be shrive.           tricks *confessed
Stomach nor conscience know I none;
I shrew* these shrifte-fathers every one.          curse *confessors
Well be we met, by God and by St Jame.
But, leve brother, tell me then thy name,"
Quoth this Sompnour.  Right in this meane while
This yeoman gan a little for to smile.

"Brother," quoth he, "wilt thou that I thee tell?
I am a fiend, my dwelling is in hell,
And here I ride about my purchasing,
To know where men will give me any thing.
My purchase is th' effect of all my rent        what I can gain is my
Look how thou ridest for the same intent                   sole revenue
To winne good, thou reckest never how,
Right so fare I, for ride will I now
Into the worlde's ende for a prey."

"Ah," quoth this Sompnour, "benedicite! what say y'?
I weened ye were a yeoman truly.                                thought
Ye have a manne's shape as well as I
Have ye then a figure determinate
In helle, where ye be in your estate?"                         at home
"Nay, certainly," quoth he, there have we none,
But when us liketh we can take us one,
Or elles make you seem that we be shape                        believe
Sometime like a man, or like an ape;
Or like an angel can I ride or go;
It is no wondrous thing though it be so,
A lousy juggler can deceive thee.
And pardie, yet can I more craft than he."              skill, cunning
"Why," quoth the Sompnour, "ride ye then or gon
In sundry shapes and not always in one?"
"For we," quoth he, "will us in such form make.
As most is able our prey for to take."
"What maketh you to have all this labour?"
"Full many a cause, leve Sir Sompnour,"
Saide this fiend. "But all thing hath a time;
The day is short and it is passed prime,
And yet have I won nothing in this day;
I will intend to winning, if I may,               &nbs

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral Mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for beside that boisterous Brook
The mountains have all open'd out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.

No habitation there is seen; but such
As journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude,
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that place a story appertains,
Which, though it be ungarnish'd with events,
Is not unfit, I deem, for the fire-side,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first,
The earliest of those tales that spake to me
Of Shepherds, dwellers in the vallies, men
Whom I already lov'd, not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.

And hence this Tale, while I was yet a boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
At random and imperfectly indeed
On man; the heart of man and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts,
And with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these Hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.


Upon the Forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name.
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His ****** frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen
Intense and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his Shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.

Hence he had learn'd the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone, and often-times
When others heeded not, He heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of Bagpipers on distant Highland hills;
The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say
The winds are now devising work for me!

And truly at all times the storm, that drives
The Traveller to a shelter, summon'd him
Up to the mountains: he had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists
That came to him and left him on the heights.
So liv'd he till his eightieth year was pass'd.

And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
That the green Valleys, and the Streams and Rocks
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.
Fields, where with chearful spirits he had breath'd
The common air; the hills, which he so oft
Had climb'd with vigorous steps; which had impress'd
So many incidents upon his mind
Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
Which like a book preserv'd the memory
Of the dumb animals, whom he had sav'd,
Had fed or shelter'd, linking to such acts,
So grateful in themselves, the certainty
Of honorable gains; these fields, these hills
Which were his living Being, even more
Than his own Blood--what could they less? had laid
Strong hold on his affections, were to him
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself.

He had not passed his days in singleness.
He had a Wife, a comely Matron, old
Though younger than himself full twenty years.
She was a woman of a stirring life
Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had
Of antique form, this large for spinning wool,
That small for flax, and if one wheel had rest,
It was because the other was at work.
The Pair had but one Inmate in their house,
An only Child, who had been born to them
When Michael telling o'er his years began
To deem that he was old, in Shepherd's phrase,
With one foot in the grave. This only son,
With two brave sheep dogs tried in many a storm.

The one of an inestimable worth,
Made all their Household. I may truly say,
That they were as a proverb in the vale
For endless industry. When day was gone,
And from their occupations out of doors
The Son and Father were come home, even then,
Their labour did not cease, unless when all
Turn'd to their cleanly supper-board, and there
Each with a mess of pottage and skimm'd milk,
Sate round their basket pil'd with oaten cakes,
And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when their meal
Was ended, LUKE (for so the Son was nam'd)
And his old Father, both betook themselves
To such convenient work, as might employ
Their hands by the fire-side; perhaps to card
Wool for the House-wife's spindle, or repair
Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,
Or other implement of house or field.

Down from the cicling by the chimney's edge,
Which in our ancient uncouth country style
Did with a huge projection overbrow
Large space beneath, as duly as the light
Of day grew dim, the House-wife hung a lamp;
An aged utensil, which had perform'd
Service beyond all others of its kind.

Early at evening did it burn and late,
Surviving Comrade of uncounted Hours
Which going by from year to year had found
And left the Couple neither gay perhaps
Nor chearful, yet with objects and with hopes
Living a life of eager industry.

And now, when LUKE was in his eighteenth year,
There by the light of this old lamp they sate,
Father and Son, while late into the night
The House-wife plied her own peculiar work,
Making the cottage thro' the silent hours
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.

Not with a waste of words, but for the sake
Of pleasure, which I know that I shall give
To many living now, I of this Lamp
Speak thus minutely: for there are no few
Whose memories will bear witness to my tale,
The Light was famous in its neighbourhood,
And was a public Symbol of the life,
The thrifty Pair had liv'd. For, as it chanc'd,
Their Cottage on a plot of rising ground
Stood single, with large prospect North and South,
High into Easedale, up to Dunmal-Raise,
And Westward to the village near the Lake.
And from this constant light so regular
And so far seen, the House itself by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was nam'd The Evening Star.

Thus living on through such a length of years,
The Shepherd, if he lov'd himself, must needs
Have lov'd his Help-mate; but to Michael's heart
This Son of his old age was yet more dear--
Effect which might perhaps have been produc'd
By that instinctive tenderness, the same
Blind Spirit, which is in the blood of all,
Or that a child, more than all other gifts,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.

From such, and other causes, to the thoughts
Of the old Man his only Son was now
The dearest object that he knew on earth.
Exceeding was the love he bare to him,
His Heart and his Heart's joy! For oftentimes
Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,
Had done him female service, not alone
For dalliance and delight, as is the use
Of Fathers, but with patient mind enforc'd
To acts of tenderness; and he had rock'd
His cradle with a woman's gentle hand.

And in a later time, ere yet the Boy
Had put on Boy's attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind,
To have the young one in his sight, when he
Had work by his own door, or when he sate
With sheep before him on his Shepherd's stool,
Beneath that large old Oak, which near their door
Stood, and from it's enormous breadth of shade
Chosen for the Shearer's covert from the sun,
Thence in our rustic dialect was call'd
The CLIPPING TREE, *[1] a name which yet it bears.

There, while they two were sitting in the shade,
With others round them, earnest all and blithe,
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks
Of fond correction and reproof bestow'd
Upon the child, if he dislurb'd the sheep
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts
Scar'd them, while they lay still beneath the shears.

And when by Heaven's good grace the Boy grew up
A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek
Two steady roses that were five years old,
Then Michael from a winter coppice cut
With his own hand a sapling, which he hoop'd
With iron, making it throughout in all
Due requisites a perfect Shepherd's Staff,
And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipp'd
He as a Watchman oftentimes was plac'd
At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock,
And to his office prematurely call'd
There stood the urchin, as you will divine,
Something between a hindrance and a help,
And for this cause not always, I believe,
Receiving from his Father hire of praise.

While this good household thus were living on
From day to day, to Michael's ear there came
Distressful tidings. Long before, the time
Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound
In surety for his Brother's Son, a man
Of an industrious life, and ample means,
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly
Had press'd upon him, and old Michael now
Was summon'd to discharge the forfeiture,
A grievous penalty, but little less
Than half his substance. This un-look'd-for claim
At the first hearing, for a moment took
More hope out of his life than he supposed
That any old man ever could have lost.

As soon as he had gather'd so much strength
That he could look his trouble in the face,
It seem'd that his sole refuge was to sell
A portion of his patrimonial fields.
Such was his first resolve; he thought again,
And his heart fail'd him. "Isabel," said he,
Two evenings after he had heard the news,
"I have been toiling more than seventy years,
And in the open sun-shine of God's love
Have we all liv'd, yet if these fields of ours
Should pass into a Stranger's hand, I think
That I could not lie quiet in my grave."

"Our lot is a hard lot; the Sun itself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I,
And I have liv'd to be a fool at last
To my own family. An evil Man
That was, and made an evil choice, if he
Were false to us; and if he were not false,
There are ten thousand to whom loss like this
Had been no sorrow. I forgive him--but
'Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.
When I began, my purpose was to speak
Of remedies and of a chearful hope."

"Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land
Shall not go from us, and it shall be free,
He shall possess it, free as is the wind
That passes over it. We have, thou knowest,
Another Kinsman, he will be our friend
In this distress. He is a prosperous man,
Thriving in trade, and Luke to him shall go,
And with his Kinsman's help and his own thrift,
He quickly will repair this loss, and then
May come again to us. If here he stay,
What can be done? Where every one is poor
What can be gain'd?" At this, the old man paus'd,
And Isabel sate silent, for her mind
Was busy, looking back into past times.

There's Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,
He was a parish-boy--at the church-door
They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence,
And halfpennies, wherewith the Neighbours bought
A Basket, which they fill'd with Pedlar's wares,
And with this Basket on his arm, the Lad
Went up to London, found a Master there,
Who out of many chose the trusty Boy
To go and overlook his merchandise
Beyond the seas, where he grew wond'rous rich,
And left estates and monies to the poor,
And at his birth-place built a Chapel, floor'd
With Marble, which he sent from foreign lands.
These thoughts, and many others of like sort,
Pass'd quickly thro' the mind of Isabel,
And her face brighten'd. The Old Man was glad.

And thus resum'd. "Well I Isabel, this scheme
These two days has been meat and drink to me.
Far more than we have lost is left us yet.
--We have enough--I wish indeed that I
Were younger, but this hope is a good hope.
--Make ready Luke's best garments, of the best
Buy for him more, and let us send him forth
To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:
--If he could go, the Boy should go to-night."
Here Michael ceas'd, and to the fields went forth
With a light heart. The House-wife for five days
Was restless morn and night, and all day long
Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare
Things needful for the journey of her Son.

But Isabel was glad when Sunday came
To stop her in her work; for, when she lay
By Michael's side, she for the two last nights
Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:
And when they rose at morning she could see
That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves
Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go,
We have no other Child but thee to lose,
None to remember--do not go away,
For if thou leave thy Father he will die."
The Lad made answer with a jocund voice,
And Isabel, when she had told her fears,
Recover'd heart. That evening her best fare
Did she bring forth, and all together sate
Like happy people round a Christmas fire.

Next morning Isabel resum'd her work,
And all the ensuing week the house appear'd
As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length
The expected letter from their Kinsman came,
With kind assurances that he would do
His utmost for the welfare of the Boy,
To which requests were added that forthwith
He might be sent to him. Ten times or more
The letter was read over; Isabel
Went forth to shew it to the neighbours round:
Nor was there at that time on English Land
A prouder heart than Luke's. When Isabel
Had to her house return'd, the Old Man said,
"He shall depart to-morrow." To this word
The House--wife answered, talking much of things
Which, if at such, short notice he should go,
Would surely be forgotten. But at length
She gave consent, and Michael was at ease.

Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill,
In that deep Valley, Michael had design'd
To build a Sheep-fold, and, before he heard
The tidings of his melancholy loss,
For this same purpose he had gathered up
A heap of stones, which close to the brook side
Lay thrown together, ready for the work.
With Luke that evening thitherward he walk'd;
And soon as they had reach'd the place he stopp'd,
And thus the Old Man spake to him. "My Son,
To-morrow thou wilt leave me; with full heart
I look upon thee, for thou art the same
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth,
And all thy life hast been my daily joy.
I will relate to thee some little part
Of our two histories; 'twill do thee good
When thou art from me, even if I should speak
Of things thou caust not know of.--After thou
First cam'st into the world, as it befalls
To new-born infants, thou didst sleep away
Two days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue
Then fell upon thee. Day by day pass'd on,
And still I lov'd thee with encreasing love."

Never to living ear came sweeter sounds
Than when I heard thee by our own fire-side
First uttering without words a natural tune,
When thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy
Sing at thy Mother's breast. Month follow'd month,
And in the open fields my life was pass'd
And in the mountains, else I think that thou
Hadst been brought up upon thy father's knees.
--But we were playmates, Luke; among these hills,
As well thou know'st, in us the old and young
Have play'd together, nor with me didst thou
Lack any pleasure which a boy can know.

Luke had a manly heart; but at these words
He sobb'd aloud; the Old Man grasp'd his hand,
And said, "Nay do not take it so--I see
That these are things of which I need not speak.
--Even to the utmost I have been to thee
A kind and a good Father: and herein
I but repay a gift which I myself
Receiv'd at others' hands, for, though now old
Beyond the common life of man, I still
Remember them who lov'd me in my youth."

Both of them sleep together: here they liv'd
As all their Forefathers had done, and when
At length their time was come, they were not loth
To give their bodies to the family mold.
I wish'd that thou should'st live the life they liv'd.
But 'tis a long time to look back, my Son,
And see so little gain from sixty years.
These fields were burthen'd when they came to me;
'Till I was forty years of age, not more
Than half of my inheritance was mine.

"I toil'd and toil'd; God bless'd me in my work,
And 'till these three weeks past the land was free.
--It looks as if it never could endure
Another Master. Heaven forgive me, Luke,
If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good
That thou should'st go." At this the Old Man paus'd,
Then, pointing to the Stones near which they stood,
Thus, after a short silence, he resum'd:
"This was a work for us, and now, my Son,
It is a wo

Adamant, nocturnal dalliance
Egregious, insidious, velvet ambiance

An unyielding, dark but brief love affair
The flagrant, seductive and comely au pair

The Eclectic, unmatched, Androgynous Circus
Red devils, black sheep and felines in service

Contortionists, gypsies, and malevolent magicians
All twisting to a dance played by faceless musicians

A night in Tunisia or a place above the Siene
Where else but all in the shadows of dreams?

Enchanted, redolent wonder of festive illumination    
Her eyes absorbed, glimmering in the lush captivation

Enveloping, engulfing silk around our bodies
Days, nights measured by tragic commodities

Arpeggios, rippling across glistening string inventions
Bowing cellos; cellists bowing with audience permission

Masks, costumes, carnivals and the golden mirror
Cerulean dripping limbs that slither while near her

The alabaster piano played by a three-armed puppet
The statues turn and welcome us for a crumpet

Maria Callus sings Ave Maria backwards then stops
The statues and demons laugh while playing with props

“This requiem for the living, begins with a kiss”
The statues said in a tone of voice I could not resist.

“Our overture shall be a ******, a nail in the coffin; a death.
All while you swallow the nectar on your lover’s last breath.”


Needles protruded my head
And I watched as my love was torn
Limb from limb
While the jackals and ballroom guests
Fornicated on the spilled blood and guts
I cried and they cheered as the lights dimmed
For All I could see was the sight of them leave
Into the darkness.
But the noises were as loud as ever as hands
And digits groped my body.
Moaning voices and rhythmic thrusting
And tongues in my ear
And teeth gnawing on my neck
Pain felt, endured, experienced
Then
I was released into the middle of the scarlet draped room
When the phlegm of ****** fluids whipped into a dried crust

A sharp edge stabbed me in the back of the neck
Running along my back, through my spine, down my skin and ending in my ******.
Mechanical hands ripped apart my skin  
I slid out of my flesh like a serpentine ******.
I stood there
shaking from the excruciating, unfathomable pain
the grid and design of my muscular system bare and seen.  

From the pieces of my departed lover,
the master with the many mechanical hands
slathered the slips
and sleeves of her skin onto my own.

Needles and thread went to work.
The puppet master sewed.
The healing plasma
the drying blood
the encapsulating tears lubricated my whole

Once he was finished, I was dunked into a pool of clear gelatin.

For hours I soaked and became whole again.
Then I rose and I was dressed
the finest garments, from across the globe.
I sat once again at the table where the statues invited me.
The musicians, the magicians, the demons, gypsies, masks and serpents
Watched and gleamed
while I sipped my tea

I out spread my fingers.

Layers of skin and stitches

No more hair.
No more nails.
Not just a regular face
but one all shall remember.

I was born as one

Then made from many

In the imminence of zealous devils in my wake
Of the attrition I have forsake

Now as the curtain rose and the spider-silk strings hoisted me up on stage
The master showcased my story to all whoever wished to engage

“Adamant, nocturnal dalliance
Egregious, insidious, velvet ambiance

An unyielding, dark but brief love affair
The flagrant, seductive and comely au pair

The Eclectic, unmatched, Androgynous Circus
Red devils, black sheep and felines in service

I am Vincent Andromeda
Your Strangelove phenomena.”