My life was sweet as honey once
it was a sun-filled garden where
The roses blossomed as I passed
and seed hung thick upon the air

While trees from some enchanted realm
were laden with the golden peach
And every fruit was ripe but firm
and hanging just within my reach

With plumes of crispest ivory
on wings of silk. the swans all flew
But then the autumn brought her morning
mists of gauze and pearls of dew

The swans went south, and winter came
to turn the streams and lakes to glass
To **** the flowers with bitter frosts
and freeze each tiny thread of grass

The flowers would never bloom again
nor would the gold-beaked linnet sing
And so I chose my inner world
where I am God of Everything

No need to sit and weep or sigh
for any God from the Machine
'Tis I who writes the storyline
Who shines the light, who sets each scene

I am the Great All-Seeing Eye
Afloat above this painted stage
And here my actors mouthe each line
that I scrawl down upon the page

I've bent the Cosmos to my will
and there is only Summer now
The lakes are full of silken swans
and peaches hang on every bough.

This city is a wasteland of broken temples
and creaking pines, where the fountains wheeze and sputter into their bowls of lichened marble
From every street vent rises the dismal miasma of the sepulchre
Among the ruins, the dark roses are ragged as moth-eaten damask
and the tired nightingale trills like a rusty harpsichord
-all hope died here with the Golden One
Now I look East to the Promised Land of the opal arch and the diamond rains
where hives bristle and the honey flows

There was a dreamy, pine grove once,
whose towering trees looked, to my eye,
Like pictures from a fairy book
beneath a turquoise-vaulted sky!

Some days I'd see an image of
a sleeping princess tangled there.
With lilies fading in her hands
and briar-rose woven in her hair.

Well, years have passed. I walk there now.
'midst lavish trees of greenest plush.
A mossy carpet 'neath my feet.
and all around a velvet hush.

The clanging anvils of the forge
the banks of sombre porphyry.
And din of the metropolis
all seem so far away from me

I've left that pell mell world behind.
and stepped inside a giant church.
While somewhere in the rafters sits.
a cuckoo fluting from its perch.

I see a little spring. I drink.
then walk the woodland sparkly-eyed.
For, like the water from a font,
it leaves my spirit purified.

And now a shaft of light beams down
Each pollen grain and mushroom spore
becomes a tiny mote of gold
transfiguring the forest floor

It is the time for flowers again,
the lily fold, the iris frill,
The foxglove tower, and the trumpet,
of the golden daffodil.

The strawberries now are growing plump,
and sweeter with the days that pass,
While butterflies and jewel-eyed hares,
are quivering in the flower-filled grass.

First, through whispering trees, I spy,
a swan next to a water mill,
On liquid silver there it drifts,
and scoops the water with its bill.

Then, further on, a startled deer,
comes springing from its faerie dell,
It stares and freezes to the spot,
as if beneath a magic spell.

I pass the grey-stone country church,
so small beside a sprawling yew,
And in the grounds a cemetery,
with headstones crowding, all askew.

Then topsy turvy cottages,
with ivied walls and crooked gate,
With roses clustering round the door,
and wood still crackling in the grate.

It seems they had no set squares when,
this winsome little town was planned,
That every map of every house,
was drawn up by an elfin hand!

At last I reach the city where
like finely-chiselled ivory,
The towering old cathedral stands
with everywhere a filigree.

And as I start to wander home,
the sun has disappeared again,
But I am happy now to walk,
In cool, refreshing silver rain

I see a rabbit on the path
I call him but he does not wake.
And though his fur is sparkling still
his once bright eye has turned opaque-
Rabbit..
I pray the tiny span of life
that once you lived, at least was good
Your stomach filled with toothsome grass
and fresh green clover from the wood

And jasmine, rose and willow, too
and all the finest rabbit fare
Or else I think that I would weep
to see your body stranded there

Your coffin shall be velvet-lined
a painted box, beneath the ground
And as I hum a little dirge
I''ll scatter flowers all around

I pray that once, just once, you felt
the glorious blessing of your birth
That in those woods, you filled with joy
to know you were upon this earth

I hope you danced beneath the moon
with all your long-eared friends last night
And had yourself a ball until
you dozed off in the morning light

That light you'll never see again!
How sad your days, they had to cease
upon this hard and stony path
Dear rabbit may you rest in peace.

Now, in an instant, Rome has turned.
from workaday to the sublime.
For, with its golden mists it seems.
the sun has slowed the flow of time.

The sluggish, muddy Tiber drags.
itself along the river bed.
A cloud of starlings swells and then.
it swoops and circles overhead.

As day begins to fade, it is.
as if the world exhales a sigh.
At first the lilac comes, and then.
a burst of red to light the sky.

The gilded clouds! The rosy glow!
no watercolour can compare.
A glimpse of the Empyrean.
afloat there on the evening air.

Or is this day the dying man.
whose sudden state of fervid bliss.
Confers him one last joy before.
he passes...into the abyss?

The statues here, they live and breathe,
now shadows start to fill my head.
I see no rose or laurel wreath
upon the tomb where I lie dead


What riches can I bring to Rome.
where sculptors and the Men of God.
The painters and the emperors.
and all those towering Giants trod?

If I could leave their twilight world.
and walk along a path less worn.
On wings of gold I'd rise again
and like a phoenix be reborn.

I am a blue-eyed daughter of the North and yet
the fire of Hephaestus burns in my chest.
My blood flows hot as Vesuvian lava

In my world the flowers have tongues
and smell of cinammon and myrrh
The trees sizzle with cicadas,
and the air glitters with Saharan sand,
like gold dust wafted over the sea
from an Oriental fairy tale.
On every horizon shimmers a pink mirage

I never understood those cool swans
who glide across life's waters without a ripple
or feather ruffled.
in a landscape of alabaster palaces and polished moons

I want to smash the waters into a million crystal drops,
dive in deep and yank the lilies from their roots
There is gold to be sifted
and there are pearls to be trawled
And I want to make ripples that blossom until the edge of time!