Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know’st; thou from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast Abyss,
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
  Say first—for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell—say first what cause
Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress his will
For one restraint, lords of the World besides.
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
  Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.
  Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal. But his doom
Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
At once, as far as Angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild.
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice has prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set,
As far removed from God and light of Heaven
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o’erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beelzebub. To whom th’ Arch-Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began:—
  “If thou beest he—but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!—if he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise
Joined with me once, now misery hath joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
He with his thunder; and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contentions brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th’ excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.”
  So spake th’ apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:—
  “O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers
That led th’ embattled Seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endangered Heaven’s perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,
Too well I see and rue the dire event
That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and heavenly Essences
Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o’erpowered such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate’er his business be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep?
What can it the avail though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment?”
  Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied:—
“Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure—
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair.”
  Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as ****** tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others, and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn
On Man by him seduced, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.
  Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driven backward ***** their pointing spires, and,rolled
In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights—if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue as when the force
Of subterranean wind transprots a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recovered strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
  “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”
  So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub
Thus answered:—”Leader of those armies bright
Which, but th’ Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal—they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!”
  He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast. The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear—to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand—
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl, not like those steps
On Heaven’s azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:—”Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven—once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
Th’ advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!”
  They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their General’s voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram’s son, in Egypt’s evil day,
Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o’er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
‘Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, th’ uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen ***** to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great Commander—godlike Shapes, and Forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,
Though on their names in Heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the Books of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names, till, wandering o’er the earth,
Through God’s high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and th’ invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities:
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the heathen world.
  Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused fr

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
  With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
  It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
  ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is.’
‘Oh, no one you know,’ she answers me airy,
  ‘But one we must ask if we want any roses.’

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
  There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
  And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

‘Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?’
  ’Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
‘Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
  ’Tis summer again; there’s two come for roses.

‘A word with you, that of the singer recalling—
  Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
  And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.’

We do not loosen our hands’ intertwining
  (Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
  And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

I. St. Luke The Painter

Give honour unto Luke Evangelist;
For he it was (the aged legends say)
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.
Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist
Of devious symbols: but soon having wist
How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
Are symbols also in some deeper way,
She looked through these to God and was God’s priest.

And if, past noon, her toil began to irk,
And she sought talismans, and turned in vain
To soulless self-reflections of man’s skill,
Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still
Kneel in the latter grass to pray again,
Ere the night cometh and she may not work.

II. Not As These

‘I am not as these are,’ the poet saith
In youth’s pride, and the painter, among men
At bay, where never pencil comes nor pen,
And shut about with his own frozen breath.
To others, for whom only rhyme wins faith
As poets,—only paint as painters,—then
He turns in the cold silence; and again
Shrinking, ‘I am not as these are,’ he saith.

And say that this is so, what follows it?
For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head,
Such words were well; but they see on, and far.
Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit
Fair for the Future’s track, look thou instead,—
Say thou instead ‘I am not as these are.’

III. The Husbandmen

Though God, as one that is an householder,
Called these to labour in his vine-yard first,
Before the husk of darkness was well burst
Bidding them ***** their way out and bestir,
(Who, questioned of their wages, answered, ‘Sir,
Unto each man a penny:’) though the worst
Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst:
Though God hath since found none such as these were
To do their work like them:—Because of this
Stand not ye idle in the market-place.
Which of ye knoweth he is not that last
Who may be first by faith and will?—yea, his
The hand which after the appointed days
And hours shall give a Future to their Past?

194

On this long storm the Rainbow rose—
On this late Morn—the Sun—
The clouds—like listless Elephants—
Horizons—straggled down—

The Birds rose smiling, in their nests—
The gales—indeed—were done—
Alas, how heedless were the eyes—
On whom the summer shone!

The quiet nonchalance of death—
No Daybreak—can bestir—
The slow—Archangel’s syllables
Must awaken her!

64

Some Rainbow—coming from the Fair!
Some Vision of the World Cashmere—
I confidently see!
Or else a Peacock’s purple Train
Feather by feather—on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy Butterflies bestir!
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune!
From some old Fortress on the sun
Baronial Bees—march—one by one—
In murmuring platoon!

The Robins stand as thick today
As flakes of snow stood yesterday—
On fence—and Roof—and Twig!
The Orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover—Don the Sun!
Revisiting the Bog!

Without Commander! Countless! Still!
The Regiments of Wood and Hill
In bright detachment stand!
Behold! Whose Multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas—
Or what Circassian Land?

Now when Morning, clad in her robe of saffron, had begun to suffuse
light over the earth, Jove called the gods in council on the topmost
crest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave
ear. “Hear me,” said he, “gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as
I am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross
me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an
end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or
Danaans, he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to
Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the
deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor
bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that
you may learn how much the mightiest I am among you. Try me and find
out for yourselves. Hangs me a golden chain from heaven, and lay
hold of it all of you, gods and goddesses together—tug as you will,
you will not drag Jove the supreme counsellor from heaven to earth;
but were I to pull at it myself I should draw you up with earth and
sea into the bargain, then would I bind the chain about some
pinnacle of Olympus and leave you all dangling in the mid firmament.
So far am I above all others either of gods or men.”
  They were frightened and all of them of held their peace, for he had
spoken masterfully; but at last Minerva answered, “Father, son of
Saturn, king of kings, we all know that your might is not to be
gainsaid, but we are also sorry for the Danaan warriors, who are
perishing and coming to a bad end. We will, however, since you so
bid us, refrain from actual fighting, but we will make serviceable
suggestions to the Argives that they may not all of them perish in
your displeasure.”
  Jove smiled at her and answered, “Take heart, my child,
Trito-born; I am not really in earnest, and I wish to be kind to you.”
  With this he yoked his fleet horses, with hoofs of bronze and
manes of glittering gold. He girded himself also with gold about the
body, seized his gold whip and took his seat in his chariot. Thereon
he lashed his horses and they flew forward nothing loth midway twixt
earth and starry heaven. After a while he reached many-fountained Ida,
mother of wild beasts, and Gargarus, where are his grove and
fragrant altar. There the father of gods and men stayed his horses,
took them from the chariot, and hid them in a thick cloud; then he
took his seat all glorious upon the topmost crests, looking down
upon the city of Troy and the ships of the Achaeans.
  The Achaeans took their morning meal hastily at the ships, and
afterwards put on their armour. The Trojans on the other hand likewise
armed themselves throughout the city, fewer in numbers but
nevertheless eager perforce to do battle for their wives and children.
All the gates were flung wide open, and horse and foot sallied forth
with the ***** as of a great multitude.
  When they were got together in one place, shield clashed with
shield, and spear with spear, in the conflict of mail-clad men. Mighty
was the din as the bossed shields pressed ******* one another-
death—cry and shout of triumph of slain and slayers, and the earth
ran red with blood.
  Now so long as the day waxed and it was still morning their
weapons beat against one another, and the people fell, but when the
sun had reached mid-heaven, the sire of all balanced his golden
scales, and put two fates of death within them, one for the Trojans
and the other for the Achaeans. He took the balance by the middle, and
when he lifted it up the day of the Achaeans sank; the death-fraught
scale of the Achaeans settled down upon the ground, while that of
the Trojans rose heavenwards. Then he thundered aloud from Ida, and
sent the glare of his lightning upon the Achaeans; when they saw this,
pale fear fell upon them and they were sore afraid.
  Idomeneus dared not stay nor yet Agamemnon, nor did the two
Ajaxes, servants of Mars, hold their ground. Nestor knight of Gerene
alone stood firm, bulwark of the Achaeans, not of his own will, but
one of his horses was disabled. Alexandrus husband of lovely Helen had
hit it with an arrow just on the top of its head where the mane begins
to grow away from the skull, a very deadly place. The horse bounded in
his anguish as the arrow pierced his brain, and his struggles threw
others into confusion. The old man instantly began cutting the
traces with his sword, but Hector’s fleet horses bore down upon him
through the rout with their bold charioteer, even Hector himself,
and the old man would have perished there and then had not Diomed been
quick to mark, and with a loud cry called Ulysses to help him.
  “Ulysses,” he cried, “noble son of Laertes where are you flying
to, with your back turned like a coward? See that you are not struck
with a spear between the shoulders. Stay here and help me to defend
Nestor from this man’s furious onset.”
  Ulysses would not give ear, but sped onward to the ships of the
Achaeans, and the son of Tydeus flinging himself alone into the
thick of the fight took his stand before the horses of the son of
Neleus. “Sir,” said he, “these young warriors are pressing you hard,
your force is spent, and age is heavy upon you, your squire is naught,
and your horses are slow to move. Mount my chariot and see what the
horses of Tros can do—how cleverly they can scud hither and thither
over the plain either in flight or in pursuit. I took them from the
hero Aeneas. Let our squires attend to your own steeds, but let us
drive mine straight at the Trojans, that Hector may learn how
furiously I too can wield my spear.”
  Nestor knight of Gerene hearkened to his words. Thereon the
doughty squires, Sthenelus and kind-hearted Eurymedon, saw to Nestor’s
horses, while the two both mounted Diomed’s chariot. Nestor took the
reins in his hands and lashed the horses on; they were soon close up
with Hector, and the son of Tydeus aimed a spear at him as he was
charging full speed towards them. He missed him, but struck his
charioteer and squire Eniopeus son of noble Thebaeus in the breast
by the ****** while the reins were in his hands, so that he died there
and then, and the horses swerved as he fell headlong from the chariot.
Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of his charioteer, but let
him lie for all his sorrow, while he went in quest of another
driver; nor did his steeds have to go long without one, for he
presently found brave Archeptolemus the son of Iphitus, and made him
get up behind the horses, giving the reins into his hand.
  All had then been lost and no help for it, for they would have
been penned up in Ilius like sheep, had not the sire of gods and men
been quick to mark, and hurled a fiery flaming thunderbolt which
fell just in front of Diomed’s horses with a flare of burning
brimstone. The horses were frightened and tried to back beneath the
car, while the reins dropped from Nestor’s hands. Then he was afraid
and said to Diomed, “Son of Tydeus, turn your horses in flight; see
you not that the hand of Jove is against you? To-day he vouchsafes
victory to Hector; to-morrow, if it so please him, he will again grant
it to ourselves; no man, however brave, may thwart the purpose of
Jove, for he is far stronger than any.”
  Diomed answered, “All that you have said is true; there is a grief
however which pierces me to the very heart, for Hector will talk among
the Trojans and say, ‘The son of Tydeus fled before me to the
ships.’ This is the vaunt he will make, and may earth then swallow
me.”
  “Son of Tydeus,” replied Nestor, “what mean you? Though Hector say
that you are a coward the Trojans and Dardanians will not believe him,
nor yet the wives of the mighty warriors whom you have laid low.”
  So saying he turned the horses back through the thick of the battle,
and with a cry that rent the air the Trojans and Hector rained their
darts after them. Hector shouted to him and said, “Son of Tydeus,
the Danaans have done you honour hitherto as regards your place at
table, the meals they give you, and the filling of your cup with wine.
Henceforth they will despise you, for you are become no better than
a woman. Be off, girl and coward that you are, you shall not scale our
walls through any Hinching upon my part; neither shall you carry off
our wives in your ships, for I shall **** you with my own hand.”
  The son of Tydeus was in two minds whether or no to turn his
horses round again and fight him. Thrice did he doubt, and thrice
did Jove thunder from the heights of. Ida in token to the Trojans that
he would turn the battle in their favour. Hector then shouted to
them and said, “Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians, lovers of close
fighting, be men, my friends, and fight with might and with main; I
see that Jove is minded to vouchsafe victory and great glory to
myself, while he will deal destruction upon the Danaans. Fools, for
having thought of building this weak and worthless wall. It shall
not stay my fury; my horses will spring lightly over their trench, and
when I am BOOK at their ships forget not to bring me fire that I may
burn them, while I slaughter the Argives who will be all dazed and
bewildered by the smoke.”
  Then he cried to his horses, “Xanthus and Podargus, and you Aethon
and goodly Lampus, pay me for your keep now and for all the
honey-sweet corn with which Andromache daughter of great Eetion has
fed you, and for she has mixed wine and water for you to drink
whenever you would, before doing so even for me who am her own
husband. Haste in pursuit, that we may take the shield of Nestor,
the fame of which ascends to heaven, for it is of solid gold, arm-rods
and all, and that we may strip from the shoulders of Diomed. the
cuirass which Vulcan made him. Could we take these two things, the
Achaeans would set sail in their ships this self-same night.”
  Thus did he vaunt, but Queen Juno made high Olympus quake as she
shook with rage upon her throne. Then said she to the mighty god of
Neptune, “What now, wide ruling lord of the earthquake? Can you find
no compassion in your heart for the dying Danaans, who bring you
many a welcome offering to Helice and to Aegae? Wish them well then.
If all of us who are with the Danaans were to drive the Trojans back
and keep Jove from helping them, he would have to sit there sulking
alone on Ida.”
  King Neptune was greatly troubled and answered, “Juno, rash of
tongue, what are you talking about? We other gods must not set
ourselves against Jove, for he is far stronger than we are.”
  Thus did they converse; but the whole space enclosed by the ditch,
from the ships even to the wall, was filled with horses and
warriors, who were pent up there by Hector son of Priam, now that
the hand of Jove was with him. He would even have set fire to the
ships and burned them, had not Queen Juno put it into the mind of
Agamemnon, to bestir himself and to encourage the Achaeans. To this
end he went round the ships and tents carrying a great purple cloak,
and took his stand by the huge black hull of Ulysses’ ship, which
was middlemost of all; it was from this place that his voice would
carry farthest, on the one hand towards the tents of Ajax son of
Telamon, and on the other towards those of Achilles—for these two
heroes, well assured of their own strength, had valorously drawn up
their ships at the two ends of the line. From this spot then, with a
voice that could be heard afar, he shouted to the Danaans, saying,
“Argives, shame on you cowardly creatures, brave in semblance only;
where are now our vaunts that we should prove victorious—the vaunts
we made so vaingloriously in Lemnos, when we ate the flesh of horned
cattle and filled our mixing-bowls to the brim? You vowed that you
would each of you stand against a hundred or two hundred men, and
now you prove no match even for one—for Hector, who will be ere
long setting our ships in a blaze. Father Jove, did you ever so ruin a
great king and rob him so utterly of his greatness? yet, when to my
sorrow I was coming hither, I never let my ship pass your altars
without offering the fat and thigh-bones of heifers upon every one
of them, so eager was I to sack the city of Troy. Vouchsafe me then
this prayer—suffer us to escape at any rate with our lives, and let
not the Achaeans be so utterly vanquished by the Trojans.”
  Thus did he pray, and father Jove pitying his tears vouchsafed him
that his people should live, not die; forthwith he sent them an eagle,
most unfailingly portentous of all birds, with a young fawn in its
talons; the eagle dropped the fawn by the altar on which the
Achaeans sacrificed to Jove the lord of omens; When, therefore, the
people saw that the bird had come from Jove, they sprang more fiercely
upon the Trojans and fought more boldly.
  There was no man of all the many Danaans who could then boast that
he had driven his horses over the trench and gone forth to fight
sooner than the son of Tydeus; long before any one else could do so he
slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Agelaus the son of Phradmon.
He had turned his horses in flight, but the spear struck him in the
back midway between his shoulders and went right through his chest,
and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell forward from his
chariot.
  After him came Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus, the two
Ajaxes clothed in valour as with a garment, Idomeneus and his
companion in arms Meriones, peer of murderous Mars, and Eurypylus
the brave son of Euaemon. Ninth came Teucer with his bow, and took his
place under cover of the shield of Ajax son of Telamon. When Ajax
lifted his shield Teucer would peer round, and when he had hit any one
in the throng, the man would fall dead; then Teucer would hie back
to Ajax as a child to its mother, and again duck down under his
shield.
  Which of the Trojans did brave Teucer first ****? Orsilochus, and
then Ormenus and Ophelestes, Daetor, Chromius, and godlike
Lycophontes, Amopaon son of Polyaemon, and Melanippus. these in turn
did he lay low upon the earth, and King Agamemnon was glad when he saw
him making havoc of the Trojans with his mighty bow. He went up to him
and said, “Teucer, man after my own heart, son of Telamon, captain
among the host, shoot on, and be at once the saving of the Danaans and
the glory of your father Telamon, who brought you up and took care
of you in his own house when you were a child, ******* though you
were. Cover him with glory though he is far off; I will promise and
I will assuredly perform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me
to sack the city of Ilius, you shall have the next best meed of honour
after my own—a tripod, or two horses with their chariot, or a woman
who shall go up into your bed.”
  And Teucer answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, you need not urge
me; from the moment we began to drive them back to Ilius, I have never
ceased so far as in me lies to look out for men whom I can shoot and
****; I have shot eight barbed shafts, and all of them have been
buried in the flesh of warlike youths, but this mad dog I cannot hit.”
  As he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hector, for he was
bent on hitting him; nevertheless he missed him, and the arrow hit
Priam’s brave son Gorgythion in the breast. His mother, fair
Castianeira, lovely as a goddess, had been married from Aesyme, and
now he bowed his head as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is
weighed down by showers in spring—even thus heavy bowed his head
beneath the weight of his helmet.
  Again he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him, and again
his arrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but he hit Hector’s
brave charioteer Archeptolemus in the breast, by the ******, as he was
driving furiously into the fight. The horses swerved aside as he
fell headlong from the chariot, and there was no life left in him.
Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of his charioteer, but for
all his sorrow he let him lie where he fell, and bade his brother
Cebriones, who was hard by, take the reins. Cebriones did as he had
said. Hector thereon with a loud cry sprang from his chariot to the
ground, and seizing a great stone made straigh

i

She isn't thy average
Typical being;
She sit's upon a loft
Only made for a queen.

ii

Her bedstead is mine
We shareth ourn pillow;
I've never been so happy
Her love, pure as a meadow.

iii

A battlement coordinates
Wherein we shalt be protected;
She's spiritually awoken me
Hari and his reyna, ressurected.

iv

I shalt beget her, from her painful sleep
Now she's awoken, her face none more weep's;
Other's shalt Bestir us, from what they can't get
Though we shalt prevail, with love, forgiveness, them to forget.


v

Brigandine silver, shalt dress me in battle
For If beast's cometh close to mine queen, their boot's shalt rattle;
A Gilbertese I wilt carry, known as a shark tooth weapon
Mine Filipino empress is mine all, no faltering, none question's.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane dedication/Filipino rose......

Now the other princes of the Achaeans slept soundly the whole
night through, but Agamemnon son of Atreus was troubled, so that he
could get no rest. As when fair Juno’s lord flashes his lightning in
token of great rain or hail or snow when the snow-flakes whiten the
ground, or again as a sign that he will open the wide jaws of hungry
war, even so did Agamemnon heave many a heavy sigh, for his soul
trembled within him. When he looked upon the plain of Troy he
marvelled at the many watchfires burning in front of Ilius, and at the
sound of pipes and flutes and of the hum of men, but when presently he
turned towards the ships and hosts of the Achaeans, he tore his hair
by handfuls before Jove on high, and groaned aloud for the very
disquietness of his soul. In the end he deemed it best to go at once
to Nestor son of Neleus, and see if between them they could find any
way of the Achaeans from destruction. He therefore rose, put on his
shirt, bound his sandals about his comely feet, flung the skin of a
huge tawny lion over his shoulders—a skin that reached his feet-
and took his spear in his hand.
  Neither could Menelaus sleep, for he, too, boded ill for the Argives
who for his sake had sailed from far over the seas to fight the
Trojans. He covered his broad back with the skin of a spotted panther,
put a casque of bronze upon his head, and took his spear in his brawny
hand. Then he went to rouse his brother, who was by far the most
powerful of the Achaeans, and was honoured by the people as though
he were a god. He found him by the stern of his ship already putting
his goodly array about his shoulders, and right glad was he that his
brother had come.
  Menelaus spoke first. “Why,” said he, “my dear brother, are you thus
arming? Are you going to send any of our comrades to exploit the
Trojans? I greatly fear that no one will do you this service, and
spy upon the enemy alone in the dead of night. It will be a deed of
great daring.”
  And King Agamemnon answered, “Menelaus, we both of us need shrewd
counsel to save the Argives and our ships, for Jove has changed his
mind, and inclines towards Hector’s sacrifices rather than ours. I
never saw nor heard tell of any man as having wrought such ruin in one
day as Hector has now wrought against the sons of the Achaeans—and
that too of his own unaided self, for he is son neither to god nor
goddess. The Argives will rue it long and deeply. Run, therefore, with
all speed by the line of the ships, and call Ajax and Idomeneus.
Meanwhile I will go to Nestor, and bid him rise and go about among the
companies of our sentinels to give them their instructions; they
will listen to him sooner than to any man, for his own son, and
Meriones brother in arms to Idomeneus, are captains over them. It
was to them more particularly that we gave this charge.”
  Menelaus replied, “How do I take your meaning? Am I to stay with
them and wait your coming, or shall I return here as soon as I have
given your orders?” “Wait,” answered King Agamemnon, “for there are so
many paths about the camp that we might miss one another. Call every
man on your way, and bid him be stirring; name him by his lineage
and by his father’s name, give each all titular observance, and
stand not too much upon your own dignity; we must take our full
share of toil, for at our birth Jove laid this heavy burden upon us.”
  With these instructions he sent his brother on his way, and went
on to Nestor shepherd of his people. He found him sleeping in his tent
hard by his own ship; his goodly armour lay beside him—his shield,
his two spears and his helmet; beside him also lay the gleaming girdle
with which the old man girded himself when he armed to lead his people
into battle—for his age stayed him not. He raised himself on his
elbow and looked up at Agamemnon. “Who is it,” said he, “that goes
thus about the host and the ships alone and in the dead of night, when
men are sleeping? Are you looking for one of your mules or for some
comrade? Do not stand there and say nothing, but speak. What is your
business?”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Nestor, son of Neleus, honour to the
Achaean name, it is I, Agamemnon son of Atreus, on whom Jove has
laid labour and sorrow so long as there is breath in my body and my
limbs carry me. I am thus abroad because sleep sits not upon my
eyelids, but my heart is big with war and with the jeopardy of the
Achaeans. I am in great fear for the Danaans. I am at sea, and without
sure counsel; my heart beats as though it would leap out of my body,
and my limbs fail me. If then you can do anything—for you too
cannot sleep—let us go the round of the watch, and see whether they
are drowsy with toil and sleeping to the neglect of their duty. The
enemy is encamped hard and we know not but he may attack us by night.”
  Nestor replied, “Most noble son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon,
Jove will not do all for Hector that Hector thinks he will; he will
have troubles yet in plenty if Achilles will lay aside his anger. I
will go with you, and we will rouse others, either the son of
Tydeus, or Ulysses, or fleet Ajax and the valiant son of Phyleus. Some
one had also better go and call Ajax and King Idomeneus, for their
ships are not near at hand but the farthest of all. I cannot however
refrain from blaming Menelaus, much as I love him and respect him—and
I will say so plainly, even at the risk of offending you—for sleeping
and leaving all this trouble to yourself. He ought to be going about
imploring aid from all the princes of the Achaeans, for we are in
extreme danger.”
  And Agamemnon answered, “Sir, you may sometimes blame him justly,
for he is often remiss and unwilling to exert himself—not indeed from
sloth, nor yet heedlessness, but because he looks to me and expects me
to take the lead. On this occasion, however, he was awake before I
was, and came to me of his own accord. I have already sent him to call
the very men whom you have named. And now let us be going. We shall
find them with the watch outside the gates, for it was there I said
that we would meet them.”
  “In that case,” answered Nestor, “the Argives will not blame him nor
disobey his orders when he urges them to fight or gives them
instructions.”
  With this he put on his shirt, and bound his sandals about his
comely feet. He buckled on his purple coat, of two thicknesses, large,
and of a rough shaggy texture, grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod
spear, and wended his way along the line of the Achaean ships. First
he called loudly to Ulysses peer of gods in counsel and woke him,
for he was soon roused by the sound of the battle-cry. He came outside
his tent and said, “Why do you go thus alone about the host, and along
the line of the ships in the stillness of the night? What is it that
you find so urgent?” And Nestor knight of Gerene answered, “Ulysses,
noble son of Laertes, take it not amiss, for the Achaeans are in great
straits. Come with me and let us wake some other, who may advise
well with us whether we shall fight or fly.”
  On this Ulysses went at once into his tent, put his shield about his
shoulders and came out with them. First they went to Diomed son of
Tydeus, and found him outside his tent clad in his armour with his
comrades sleeping round him and using their shields as pillows; as for
their spears, they stood upright on the spikes of their butts that
were driven into the ground, and the burnished bronze flashed afar
like the lightning of father Jove. The hero was sleeping upon the skin
of an ox, with a piece of fine carpet under his head; Nestor went up
to him and stirred him with his heel to rouse him, upbraiding him
and urging him to bestir himself. “Wake up,” he exclaimed, “son of
Tydeus. How can you sleep on in this way? Can you not see that the
Trojans are encamped on the brow of the plain hard by our ships,
with but a little space between us and them?”
  On these words Diomed leaped up instantly and said, “Old man, your
heart is of iron; you rest not one moment from your labours. Are there
no younger men among the Achaeans who could go about to rouse the
princes? There is no tiring you.”
  And Nestor knight of Gerene made answer, “My son, all that you
have said is true. I have good sons, and also much people who might
call the chieftains, but the Achaeans are in the gravest danger;
life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor. Go
then, for you are younger than I, and of your courtesy rouse Ajax
and the fleet son of Phyleus.”
  Diomed threw the skin of a great tawny lion about his shoulders—a
skin that reached his feet—and grasped his spear. When he had
roused the heroes, he brought them back with him; they then went the
round of those who were on guard, and found the captains not
sleeping at their posts but wakeful and sitting with their arms
about them. As sheep dogs that watch their flocks when they are
yarded, and hear a wild beast coming through the mountain forest
towards them—forthwith there is a hue and cry of dogs and men, and
slumber is broken—even so was sleep chased from the eyes of the
Achaeans as they kept the watches of the wicked night, for they turned
constantly towards the plain whenever they heard any stir among the
Trojans. The old man was glad bade them be of good cheer. “Watch on,
my children,” said he, “and let not sleep get hold upon you, lest
our enemies triumph over us.”
  With this he passed the trench, and with him the other chiefs of the
Achaeans who had been called to the council. Meriones and the brave
son of Nestor went also, for the princes bade them. When they were
beyond the trench that was dug round the wall they held their
meeting on the open ground where there was a space clear of corpses,
for it was here that when night fell Hector had turned back from his
onslaught on the Argives. They sat down, therefore, and held debate
with one another.
  Nestor spoke first. “My friends,” said he, “is there any man bold
enough to venture the Trojans, and cut off some straggler, or us
news of what the enemy mean to do whether they will stay here by the
ships away from the city, or whether, now that they have worsted the
Achaeans, they will retire within their walls. If he could learn all
this and come back safely here, his fame would be high as heaven in
the mouths of all men, and he would be rewarded richly; for the chiefs
from all our ships would each of them give him a black ewe with her
lamb—which is a present of surpassing value—and he would be asked as
a guest to all feasts and clan-gatherings.”
  They all held their peace, but Diomed of the loud war-cry spoke
saying, “Nestor, gladly will I visit the host of the Trojans over
against us, but if another will go with me I shall do so in greater
confidence and comfort. When two men are together, one of them may see
some opportunity which the other has not caught sight of; if a man
is alone he is less full of resource, and his wit is weaker.”
  On this several offered to go with Diomed. The two Ajaxes,
servants of Mars, Meriones, and the son of Nestor all wanted to go, so
did Menelaus son of Atreus; Ulysses also wished to go among the host
of the Trojans, for he was ever full of daring, and thereon
Agamemnon king of men spoke thus: “Diomed,” said he, “son of Tydeus,
man after my own heart, choose your comrade for yourself—take the
best man of those that have offered, for many would now go with you.
Do not through delicacy reject the better man, and take the worst
out of respect for his lineage, because he is of more royal blood.”
  He said this because he feared for Menelaus. Diomed answered, “If
you bid me take the man of my own choice, how in that case can I
fail to think of Ulysses, than whom there is no man more eager to face
all kinds of danger—and Pallas Minerva loves him well? If he were
to go with me we should pass safely through fire itself, for he is
quick to see and understand.”
  “Son of Tydeus,” replied Ulysses, “say neither good nor ill about
me, for you are among Argives who know me well. Let us be going, for
the night wanes and dawn is at hand. The stars have gone forward,
two-thirds of the night are already spent, and the third is alone left
us.”
  They then put on their armour. Brave Thrasymedes provided the son of
Tydeus with a sword and a shield (for he had left his own at his ship)
and on his head he set a helmet of bull’s hide without either peak
or crest; it is called a skull-cap and is a common headgear.
Meriones found a bow and quiver for Ulysses, and on his head he set
a leathern helmet that was lined with a strong plaiting of leathern
thongs, while on the outside it was thickly studded with boar’s teeth,
well and skilfully set into it; next the head there was an inner
lining of felt. This helmet had been stolen by Autolycus out of
Eleon when he broke into the house of Amyntor son of Ormenus. He
gave it to Amphidamas of Cythera to take to Scandea, and Amphidamas
gave it as a guest-gift to Molus, who gave it to his son Meriones; and
now it was set upon the head of Ulysses.
  When the pair had armed, they set out, and left the other chieftains
behind them. Pallas Minerva sent them a heron by the wayside upon
their right hands; they could not see it for the darkness, but they
heard its cry. Ulysses was glad when he heard it and prayed to
Minerva: “Hear me,” he cried, “daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, you who
spy out all my ways and who are with me in all my hardships;
befriend me in this mine hour, and grant that we may return to the
ships covered with glory after having achieved some mighty exploit
that shall bring sorrow to the Trojans.”
  Then Diomed of the loud war-cry also prayed: “Hear me too,” said he,
“daughter of Jove, unweariable; be with me even as you were with my
noble father Tydeus when he went to Thebes as envoy sent by the
Achaeans. He left the Achaeans by the banks of the river Aesopus,
and went to the city bearing a message of peace to the Cadmeians; on
his return thence, with your help, goddess, he did great deeds of
daring, for you were his ready helper. Even so guide me and guard me
now, and in return I will offer you in sacrifice a broad-browed heifer
of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by man under the
yoke. I will gild her horns and will offer her up to you in
sacrifice.”
  Thus they prayed, and Pallas Minerva heard their prayer. When they
had done praying to the daughter of great Jove, they went their way
like two lions prowling by night amid the armour and blood-stained
bodies of them that had fallen.
  Neither again did Hector let the Trojans sleep; for he too called
the princes and councillors of the Trojans that he might set his
counsel before them. “Is there one,” said he, “who for a great
reward will do me the service of which I will tell you? He shall be
well paid if he will. I will give him a chariot and a couple of
horses, the fleetest that can be found at the ships of the Achaeans,
if he will dare this thing; and he will win infinite honour to boot;
he must go to the ships and find out whether they are still guarded as
heretofore, or whether now that we have beaten them the Achaeans
design to fly, and through sheer exhaustion are neglecting to keep
their watches.”
  They all held their peace; but there was among the Trojans a certain
man named Dolon, son of Eumedes, the famous herald—a man rich in gold
and bronze. He was ill-favoured, but a good runner, and was an only
son among five sisters. He it was that now addressed the Trojans.
“I, Hector,” said he, “Will to the ships and will exploit them. But
first hold up your sceptre and swear that you will give me the
chariot, bedight with bronze, and the horses that now carry the
noble son of Peleus. I will make you a good scout, and will not fail
you. I will go through the host from one end to the other till I
come to the ship of Agamemnon, where I take it the princes of the
Achaeans are now consulting whether they shall fight or fly.”
  When he had done speaking Hector held up his sceptre, and swore
him his oath saying, “May Jove the thundering husband of Juno bear
witness that no other Trojan but yourself shall mount

Strong as I may be, I'm but a mere puzzle shattered to it's pieces.
Longing for reason to be fabricated slowly ceases.
Abhorrence, despair, trepidation devour me
It's a tragic nightmare, bestir me I plea!

Take me away, let's venture to a purlieu, me and you.
I know not who you are, yet I feel comfort, so sincere, so true.
Oh how I yearn to stray from this reality
and flee in a strange and unknown fantasy

A place where no one can ever run after me,
leaving behind all this dilemmas that engulf thee.
to a place of secrecy just you and me.
No one can surpass the walls we'll make, you'll see.

We'll isolate ourselves from the tragedies that escalated
leave behind the people that shattered us, leaving us  devastated.
As I fall to yet another slumber
I will cry myself to sleep, hoping for a huge ember

to ignite, for reborn I am, with nothing to remember.....

Sister of summer, sweet sighing duende
Why are you so sad and pale?
The dawn sings litanies of your graces that make
The high sun itself mourn and quell!

Flower of autumn, with your crown of fire
Heart-seized and enraptured your eyes do make me,
Flash skies of dark'ning thunder in them
And the stars that bestir the crystal-cold seas.

Daughter of snow and ice-kissed queen
Your name is a prayer unfit for my lips
The white rose of your face the only dream I would dream
When the sun's burnt the last of its wick.

Lady in the orchards, brave lady, your tears are ever pearls
For spring has come and dawn has come
But I will never be the one to lead them in.

(sonnet #MMMMMCCCLXXVII)


I'm not asleep.  But wakened, tiptoe thence
Through every minute like to dare exhale
Is not allowed, as if to breathe would hail
The end of visions roused to caper whence
No concrete line shall say, whileas suspense
Knows Janry shows our breath in sheer betrayl
As snow feels that chinook's touch, waxing pale
Though I still walk upon its face tward sense.
And hear a distant blue jay's cry bestir
Young Saturday's thin silence like he knew
What I maunt parse out 'til what aye? as twere.
Oh yes, the sparrows' playful calls heard too
Whilst carving out the eggs, and thought in poor
Excuse I'll be half good, erm, just for you.

09Jan16b

Arise, Unconquered Sun! Awake from the Eastern Empyrean.
Land, bestir from your slumber! Light brings life and heat.
Valiant be my soul. Take heart and take to the sky.
Intone a grateful song for great blessings and small mercies to come.
Night and death and pain have departed, a new day has begun.

Haha,



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXXXIII)


Of leprechauns and clover, yes...t'avail
I've neither, am in green to match fr'intents
Mine hazel eyes, and how blue heavns wear thence
Such fresh-washed golden light in sweet all hail
O me!  I'd feign go down which wooded trail
To hunt the early violets?  Mushrooms dense
Wi' import are sought out and sold for sense
Or lurid dreams, but I want that detail.
Wee white-striped, purple faces none bestir
'Cept wildest breezes, whitest virgins too,
With purple stripes across their miens in tour--
I'd love to bend and finger them anew!
Sip twa espressos, joking of, in poor
'Scuse, "faux" things we oft cherish, as all woo.

17Mar19a

Hopefully if you're unfamiliar with that song google will comply and locate it for you.


(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXXXVI)


Blue skies out West look deeper in a sense
Than Illinois e'er knows, clouds in betrayl
'Non floating laz'ly in such vast seas they'll
Assure ye rare pools know, til I from thence
Half ache to be in those dear prairies hence
As childhood fondly knew, swept to avail
Clean of these houses clustered sans aught bail,
And where the Thunderbirds roar through fr'intents.
I said I'd join the Air Force, but Dad fer
All that said: No.  And that is better too.
Yet oh! the Rocky Mountains!  O those pure,
Unfathomed bluest skies!  What is't that'd woo
Me from their depths?  I feel it 'non bestir
My soul, just watching from afar.  And you?

31Mar19d

And now, ....



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCX)


As if twere not enough that for intents
This valentines Dad gave me Starbucks' scale
Of romance:  cherry mocha to avail
Where I'd not dreamed of aught, how blue skies fence
These minutes I warm soup with pink for sense
Light golden with an eye late April's hale
Last hours know as I set the table, frail
Sweet gloaming when we should dine, like what hence?
I don't konw.  Caught in memries as it were,
Three years ere was it? Febry's cold as due,
And Valentines Day only halfway through,
Yet I feel in my bones that May'd bestir,
Ere violets have a chance to shift in tour
Mats of dead leaves, for what is't that'd um, woo?

14Feb19b

Or?  Go figure.  



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXIII)


What? as night's blackness is passe in frail
Excuse, the hours now merely for good sense
Um, stacking up whiles I close down from hence
This slim machine for lack of aught else' tale,
And this where Twitter promised to avail
Itself of all my minutes--all's fr'intents
Too dead, dull, boring--I've moved on, pretense
Worn to a frazzle in aught that I'd hail.
Remember:  "I should write more--" to bestir
Me, yet ideas have flown off unto
Is't nether regions?  cuz I "watched in tour"
Who cares who?  Fashions.  "Follow her--what you
Should wear is...THIS."  I've MY own style, in poor
'Scuse, am ergo at odds with all, cool too?

25Mar19b

Eh?  



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXVI)


So laugh at me, cuz now I've chance to thence
Immerse myself in poetry's detail
Oer coffee break, I've plumb forgot t'avail
Me thus.  Three books, yes, printed pages dense
With antique lines, wait to be read is't, hence?
But I perused them on the night I'd hail
The chance to purchase cast-off books, and pale
As aught complaint th'auld poets stunk, where's sense?
Change is the order of the hour.  We were
Supposed to drink joe in good comp'ny, to
Talk to a living soul, not dead.  Bestir
Me to read lines and catch their spirit through
That seance was't?  I'm all mixt up in poor
'Scuse cuz the coffee's mine, all mine anew.

12Mar19b

...ARGH!  Hence the title...



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXV)


Spent, ere the fragile chance to what? avail,
Look how blue skies warm in dawn's welcome, whence
Don't roll a single word for aught intents
Across my tongue, jist see, and wonder, pale
As howling oer grey heavns' sheer lack, nor scale
Lo, any bit of this or that cuz sense
Drowned late on Monday night where visions dense
With oh, Victorian airs stole off wee bail.
Yes, when I've but a minute to bestir
My pencil for ah, which detail passed through?
I'm swooning sans a voice yet over her--
That girl whom lit'rature FORGOT, cuz ooh!
She was his mistress; won the world as twere
Because of that keen secret:  I've naught cue.

12Mar19a

Um, ya, trains again.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMXVI)


The train lo, half past midnight, whistles thence
In passing through dead silence none else hail,
Its rumble seeming muffled in betrayl,
As all lie wrapt in slumber for intents,
My sleepy notice--what is't?  Why's from hence
Sae poignant to hear that?  Am I in frail
Excuse long on the empty platform's stale
Reminder dreams have fled, where hope's pretense?
O wherefore does the train's voice 'non bestir
Is that...my soul?  like I aught hearken to
Its call as if I want a ticket--fer
Which landing is it hence?  Or does it cue
Cuz all's a journey--I've ne place here, poor
Though trying e'er to "fit in," enroute to You?

27Apr19b

...unspeakable gift." (II Cor 9:15)



(sonnet #MMMMMMMLXXIV)


"They buried me with Mum."   That haunting sense
I'm just a pilgrim wandring in betrayl
These des'late wastes all else call home, sans bail
Despite new clothes, accessries for pretense,
And dearest friends to joy with me from hence
Or weep or who-cares-what, this world to scale
Some dish that wants salt, lacking flavour--they'll
Assure me tis grand--mocks life sans defense.
If Hollywood laughs in the face as twere
Of good and righteous, where designers too
Are filthy past all words and smiling fer
Applause, I'm sans a home sans her.  Then You
Remind me "one thing's needful---" to bestir
Hope that my home, LORD's:  You.  Life.  O!  Who knew?

06Apr18b

Yes?


(sonnet #MMMMMMMXLVIII)


White gloves, a new dress lace and ruffles thence
Adorned, white stockings too, and that detail
Of patent leather Mary-janes to scale--
I was in grade-school, but for all intents
Felt grown-up cuz I'd bought those shoes, a sense
Was't? of erm, choosing 'non my wardobe hale
Proof being not yet a teen could yet avail
O, children of that feature was't? and hence?
Tis Easter Sunday 'gain, and not sae poor
At that cuz lo, it's April Fools now too.
So laugh at me since I kin still bestir
Vague memries of that childish grandeur's view
On life, safe in my parents' care, t'assure
You now that Easter's heathen, tis.  And you?

01Apr18a  (posted on allpoetry.com for their one-a-day thingy)

Note how the title comes directly from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMLXXIV)


As hunter's wont, the deer's skull hangs fr'intents
Upon the wooden porch, eye sockets' stale
And empty hollows staring in betrayl
Without a blink, forever, with a sense
Of Death behind their deeper look, pretense
Half shivring down to nothing, bones dried, frail
What? shrinking at the ghastly sight, birds hail
From greenest trees where life sings in defense.
And I...observe in silence, like as twere
Some child.  This womanhood I never knew,
Which crept on me ere I was 'ware, in tour
A joke which laughs 'non in my face.  Skies blue
With whiter cloud battalions, winds bestir
These Maples to soft whispers in what, too?

19May19b

Yes?



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCI)


What is't about the train's voice, that th'all hail
Um, piques my soul, which harks unto its dense
Low rumble like tis...what?  O dear suspense!
How "nibelung" half winks at me in hale
Dawn's golden warmth as if it knows in pale
Excuse my name, like these elf ears I've thence
Had from conception argue in a sense
Now with my height, while mists haunt with their veil.
I'd feign lose me in fog's embrace as twere;
Go wandring like I canna see unto
The fairer realms beyond is't?  Silver dew.
I cherish its sheer blanket waiting fer
Heavn's burning glance, a violet none bestir,
Hid in the darker shadows trains pass through.

22Mar19a

Alas.  Absolutely NOTHING is inspiring.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLIII)


Firs hang their boughs in silence as in pale
Excuse it looks like some big snowman thence
Erm, toppled by whom, eh? lies headless hence
Upon the "island's" rim cuz oh, t'avail
Last weekend some tried to move snow sans bail,
As la, his forklift needed to fr'intents
Be wrestled from captiv'ty, as for sense
The icy pile swore it would NOT move, hale.
Now as a fragile touch of pink'd bestir
Itself to trick out blank racks 'cross the view,
Likeas a chalkboard blushing faintly fer
Effect, what drives me to complain?  Naught woo.
Nor have I watched aught movies.  What, as twere,
Culls this dull sense that nary joys now cue?

07Mar19c

...for real?



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMXXVI)


I wish he'd dream of me tonight.  Like's thence
Not so imposs'ble that we'd meet t'avail
Ourselve of fun.  O me!  How many (pale
As lo, a crush is't?) times have I fr'intents
Liked one guy or another?  All's pretense.
I canna win.  He's tall.  He did not fail
To notice that I liked him, and for bail
Walk thus with me.  But I tripped...sans defense.
Why am I never good enough, 'cept fer
The scoundrels?  Or how fix me til I do
Not trip when you draw closer?  Flirt?!  In poor
'Scuse I liked him before, alas, I knew
What I was doing.  One look, yes'd, bestir
My heart in just a blink.  I wish he'd woo.

30Apr19d

Not love as previously wont.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMXLVI)


Lo, how the woods are silent! whiles from hence
The leaves all hang in soft chartreuse, th'exhale
Fast slumbring in its den, this calm to scale
Half breathless while all waits with half a sense
Of utter expectation I 'non finger thence,
No voice to break this patient null's detail.
And la, the clock just ticks, each second frail
As all the rest.  A Blue Jay'd scold, and whence?
Work nags at me but canna tug in poor
'Scuse at my sleeve as erst wont, cuz I'm to
Effect...cut off.  The rift is huge in tour,
Likeas a canyon whose steep walls loom through
That freighted, creeping mist I can't bestir
To find a glimpse of light for how to do.

11May19b

I can't find the words to translate this.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCLVI)


Frogs chorus from the hollows, moist earth' scents
'Non wafting on winds' softest kiss, th'exhale
So lightly fragile 'cross my cheek t'avail
As I hark, lips half oped to hear from hence
In sweet surprise their voices, wondring thence
If crickets also fiddle?  Robins'd hail
At gloaming, to yield notes of Mavis' scale
Of ancient lullabies I'd list to, whence?
Forsooth.  As if my soul's restored in tour,
Likeas a sleeper whose long nightmares to
Effect are broken, nor but dreams and poor,
I feel now I can breathe, yea see anew?
Perhaps...who knows what shall be?  Love'd bestir
As in the wings is't? now that Summer'd woo.

05Apr19b

sigh* as evidenced by which pieces "trend" being depressed is tops, while beauty is left to rot.  Whateffer.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXXVII)


Blue skies.  And golden light with shadows' pale
Forms on the yellowed lawns and blacktop hence,
Sweet minutes whose eye seems tis April's, whence
My heart yearns 'gain to walk free and avail
Me of which blossom?  Daffodils to scale
Shall send green nubbins up til for intents
Their frilly golden heads can nod from thence
To playful breezes while wee violets hail.
Yea, soon Magnolia petals shall bestir
'Gain to soft winds, and pink-tinged satin woo
Thoughts of a bride upon the aisle as twere.
For now we'll have our refried beans and do
Dessert in birthday style with cake in tour
And ice cream for the Ides of March' ado.

15Mar19d

Ye never need the finer details so here are a few for mystique.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCMXIX)


Dad's vacuum coffee *** stands in the frail
And ghastly eye of Sunday's wee hours, dense
Calm not at all asleep, but poised from hence
Likeas a tiger waiting in betrayl
To spring upon the first noise breaching pale
Erm, silence' freighted null.  We don't breathe thence,
Nor shift within our beds...til dawn's bright sense
Of "it's a new day!" draws the curtains, hale.
I slept through his alarm and maunt bestir
Til late, cuz slumber was a thing chased through
Sae many hours, I mourned sleep would not cure
My soul of aught.  And Dad's now grinding, true
To form, espresso beans, tae pull shots per
Our Sunday wont.  What of the dream I knew?

28Apr19a

I was a runner
fleeing from homespun horrors that
wrapped around my delicacy like a tourniquet

Only a child attempting to bestir
the warrior dormant within;
having no idea the enthrallment
she reveled in,
I learned to accost my demons

Nigh, even at the wide-eyed age of eight,
scarred
shattered
broken
I found, in a hand-crafted cardboard crate,
my only chance at freedom

Every Saturday I'd sneak away
to my makeshift universe
that gave life to dreams unspoken --

I would crouch and crawl
through thorn-encrusted branches
enclosed in a thicket,
sunbeams cutting into the tangles
alighting my face, piercing my eyes

The oceans breath
cascaded over the brush,
and everything, suppressed,
would fall into a hush
until I breached the winding path

Amongst the jungle of weeds/rose garlanded structures,
high above the jagged rocks
and wide open mouth of the watery abyss,
my hideaway centered --
flimsy cardboard walls,
brightly painted bold brazen symbols protecting all who entered,
tightly sealed with an invisible lock
opening only when voices of forgotten children fluttered through the air

I'd stand silent beneath the incandescent sky,
for just a moment,
breathing deep the silken salty breeze
and ****** my arms out to the sides
like the seagulls hovering over the loud, fathomless cavern of the sea

I was, too.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCIX)


Let's see...rain draws up silver puddles' tale
Of being upon the blacktop, where suspense
Is fast asleep cuz Sunday augured thence
Mair calm than it could e'er endure, the pale
Eye of uncertain hours with half a frail
Thought dawn played hooky for all that, a sense
None can e'en yawn worn out as sheer pretense
Was quite arraigned in morn's half light:  sans bail.
I roll words 'cross my tongue at lunch as twere,
And sparrows take the chance to gaily cue
Fond smiles til conversation rules in tour.
Now's time to put on rice to boil anew,
Warm refried beans for dinner, lo, bestir
Me fin'lly to jot down a note...where to?

24Mar19a

Come, does the title recall a more familiar admonition?



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXLIV)


Sip coffee from espresso mugs for sense,
Yes, cradling that wee tazo in betrayl,
To sigh that tis perfection thus, t'exhale.
Feign I don't give a hoot in sheer defense,
And how my niece plays with me til pretense
'Most carries off the trick like't could avail.
Ya, watch as she eats all my grapefruit, frail
Joys juxtaposed 'gainst what? til I'm blind thence.
I told myself "three days..." a week 'go, poor
As thinking I'll do better now.  The crew
Of crimson buds wink from the distance fer
Reminders leaves shall soon be fluttring to
Capricious winds in lieu of trash.  Bestir
Me to see far off, yet alas, t'won't do.

02Apr19d

...the saint he ever is:  with a twisted halo.



(sonnet #MMMMMMCMXI)


Yes, Shakespeare loved SouthHampton.  Likeas they'll
Flout in these twisted days?  No.  Like fr'intents
As David cherished Jon'than.  With a sense
"...Beyond the love of women," on that scale
E'en wonderful (if I'm correct), t'avail
What drove black ink to cry anon that hence
Lo, "...single thou'lt prove none."  and weep from thence
Because his "lover" lacked a child for bail.
Friends closer than aught brothers as it were,
Which gave his jealous erm, contention, through
That, just cause for the notes prefixed in tour
To those long poems, and also therefore, to
His lines about that mistress who'd bestir
Such mincing lies in love's name.  Or, what's new?

29Jan18a

So get used to it.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCLXXVI)


"They" swear you should write at all hours, fr'intents,
But oh! what swore it wanted voice t'avail
At nearly midnight left me with, to scale,
Its acrid taste upon my tongue for sense
Ere dawn could settle on just whither hence,
The memry's chalkboard smudged, but NOT in pale
Excuse at all erased, alas.  Go hail
Some taxi to the edge of town, and whence?
I pick 'non through the rubble of as twere
Now oer a decade of romance I rue
Attempts at, sighing.  Dredge up hopes I'd bestir
Oer whom, was't? back then, cuz it all fell through.
Those kisses, dates--all soured.  I'm left in tour
Lo, an olde maid, where dawn won't even woo.

13Apr19b

cough, cough*


(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXVIII)


Where gloaming's blueish note of darkness thence
Culls oh, electric lights, I close the tale
Of drapes and we hang out in sheer betrayl--
All four of us--whiles I wash dishes, whence
Sweet conversation, or reproof for sense
When I drop lo, a spatula.  Detail
Whatever, but twas sweet to thus avail
Ourselves of time together for intents.
Now it's so dark, and I have played with her
Til aught before is lost in how the crew
Of dolls cavorted to her fancies, poor
As aught excuses, I am blank.  What, to
Effect, teased for a line hours ere?  What'd bestir
While I was working?  Nothing's left that'd woo.

13Mar19b

The sales caught me off guard with early cries of St. Patrick's Day, kick me.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCLXXIV)


Lo, sparrows gaily chatter as I thence
Pass by the entry, and whiles rain t'avail
Is like some fragile yet persistent, hale
Sweet kiss that drives ole Winter's Death from hence
And rouses buds to pierce 'gain through those dense
Leaf mats knit months before and spread to scale
Across the sleeping flowrs last April'd hail
The world with once upon a time, ah whence?
I yearn to wander oer these wastes in tour,
If that I might now listen to the dew,
Hear all the little scurrying which'd bestir
As yellowed grasses shift to what? anew.
It is the Ides of March, the knife as twere
'Non twisting in dear Caesar's back from who?

15Mar19a

Ahem.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCLII)


Or...mebbe not.  My "daisy" seems fr'intents
To still have petals:  "he's" been smoking, frail
As noting THAT, most plainly oft in pale
Excuse, today.  My heart--how't wishes thence
Tis cuz I'm not the only one whose sense
Is not asleep.  Yes, that's in sheer betrayl
A sweeter thought, though I maunt, to avail,
Put any stock in it, nor find defense.
Perchance he's feeling overburdened fer
Another cause, nor knows, nor cares I do.
O, does the Cardnal's distant voice bestir
The other morning, April Fool's, when to
Be certain I prayed for a man in tour
In lieu of that auld scarlet lover's cue?

04Apr19e

...or did, as I madly scribbled this hotly down.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCLXXIV)


Dear Friday night, could you arrange fr'intents
Some date for souls that draw the short straw?  Bail
Is sleep cuz I've no better cue t'avail
Me of, not even stars in black depths' sense
Of that which Abraham saw maunt be thence
E'en counted, cuz it's TOO COLD.  Wake in pale
Excuse to oh, the dregs of that wine they'll
Grant might have made me drunk, and whither hence?
My friend was too sweet, and aught hope was poor.
I'm sick of being the **** of jokes, yet to
Nobody's credit, dawn finds me as twere:
Ambiv'lent.  Yes, I realize that won't do.
What's left when I've spent all?  What, to bestir
More than this bitter taste of all I rue?

12Apr19d