"assur" poems
It was golden and splendid,
That City of light;
A vision suspended
In deeps of the night;
A region of wonder and glory, whose temples were marble and white.
I remember the season
It dawn'd on my gaze;
The mad time of unreason,
The brain-numbing days
When Winter, white-sheeted and ghastly, stalks onward to torture and craze.
More lovely than Zion
It shone in the sky
When the beams of Orion
Beclouded my eye,
Bringing sleep that was filled with dim mem'ries of moments obscure and gone by.
Its mansions were stately,
With carvings made fair,
Each rising sedately
On terraces rare,
And the gardens were fragrant and bright with strange miracles blossoming there.
The avenues lur'd me
With vistas sublime;
Tall arches assur'd me
That once on a time
I had wander'd in rapture beneath them, and bask'd in the Halcyon clime.
On the plazas were standing
A sculptur'd array;
Long bearded, commanding,
rave men in their day—
But one stood dismantled and broken, its bearded face battered away.
In that city effulgent
No mortal I saw,
But my fancy, indulgent
To memory's law,
Linger'd long on the forms in the plazas, and eyed their stone features with
awe.
I fann'd the faint ember
That glow'd in my mind,
And strove to remember
The aeons behind; &
21.4k
Come, my Ardelia, to this bowre,
Where kindly mingling Souls a while,
Let's innocently spend an houre,
And at all serious follys smile
Here is no quarrelling for Crowns,
Nor fear of changes in our fate;
No trembling at the Great ones frowns
Nor any slavery of state.
Here's no disguise, nor treachery
Nor any deep conceal'd design;
From blood and plots this place is free,
And calm as are those looks of thine.
Here let us sit and bless our Starres
Who did such happy quiet give,
As that remov'd from noise of warres.
In one another's hearts we live.
We should we entertain a feare?
Love cares not how the world is turn'd.
If crouds of dangers should appeare,
Yet friendship can be unconcern'd.
We weare about us such a charme,
No horrour can be our offence;
For misheif's self can doe no harme
To friendship and to innocence.
Let's mark how soone Apollo's beams
Command the flocks to quit their meat,
And not intreat the neighbour -- streams
To quench their thirst, but coole their heat.
In such a scorching Age as this,
Whoever would not seek a shade
Deserve their happiness to misse,
As having their own peace betray'd.
But we (of one another's mind
Assur'd,) the boistrous world disdain;
With quiet souls, and unconfin'd,
Enjoy what princes wish in vain.
2.2k
Spells of chieftain splendor
Bespeaking of loyal grandeur
Now the eye clearly sees without fear
At dusk!
The ancient kingdom of Assur?
A flight in time and space from afar?
Was that ingenious creativity of flair?
Still bids indubitable eternal mystery!
Are clothes on man an anecdote of utter hypocrisy?
Is sarcastic humor a precursor of hidden sinister?
The animals hereof show their ******
Undertone tinges of impeccant simplicity
Stirring poignant Achilles' heel character
As an infant suckling the breast of saccharine nature;
Lo! And behold…
Sage mortals envisage a grotesque quest for a promising stage,
Regnant and dignified?
The new-age psyches’ beatify and feebly beg
"Reform, in fact, is, rather softly, on the win”
The lighthouse flashing against the sleet-blurred fig twig
As every sacred notion becomes an unwavering origin certain,
With no remorse that mankind can now ascertain
The bewildering incarnation of science in religion!
Like a single lily among lilies in a dark dungeon
Great spirits now encounter violent opposition
“Un-awakened Children silently screaming with pessimism”
Hiding within the smooth sacred mask of personality
Yet the fear of “the unknown” silently plays a drowsier symphony
Calling back the violent rays to illuminate a peaceable destiny
Were illusionary realities conform to the whims of a veiled deity,
This goddess!
A mystifying inferno doing its own radiance faster
What a fuss!
So light-footed as love yet so heavy-footed as war
As if to justify the whirling gloom of despair
Like the bleakness of the morning cuckooing rooster
Or the dog which barks at his own image in a pond;
“What startling veneration”
Mortals without remorse still aspire to find
The misplaced diamonds and daffs upon the beamish ground.
Muhumuza Kenneth Ezra.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 3:46 AM UTC
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try;
Nor call’d the gods with ****** spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assur’d the forced pow’r.
So when they did design
The Capitol’s first line,
A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the state
Foresaw its happy fate.
from:
An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland
by Andrew Marvell, 1651
Jun 3, 2017
Jun 3, 2017 at 7:47 AM UTC