A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

        The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The Lady Alice Egerton.


The first Scene discovers a wild wood.
The ATTENDANT SPIRIT descends or enters.


Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To Such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
         But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, ‘twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned ***** of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father’s state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard:
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
         Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe’s island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris’ woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.


COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
wild
beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
glistering.
They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
their hands.


         COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the ***** sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rights begin;
‘T is only daylight that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne’er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
That ne’er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat’, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

                              The Measure.

         Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some ****** sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that’s against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
I shall appear some harmless villager
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
And hearken, if I may her business hear.

The LADY enters.

         LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit
As the kind hospitable woods provide.
They left me then when the grey-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer’s ****,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain.
But where they are, and why they came not back,
Is now the labour of my thoughts. TTis likeliest
They had engaged their wandering steps too far;
And envious darkness, ere they could return,
Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night,
Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end,
In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps
With everlasting oil to give due light
To the misled and lonely traveller?
This is the place, as well as I may guess,
Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear;
Yet nought but single darkness do I find.
What might this be ? A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.
O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
To keep my life and honour unassailed. . . .
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot hallo to my brothers, but
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I’ll venture; for my new-enlivened spirits
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far off.

Song.

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen
                 Within thy airy shell
         By slow Meander’s margent green,
And in the violet-embroidered vale
         Where the love-lorn nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well:
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
         That likest thy Narcissus are?
                  O, if thou have
         Hid them in some flowery cave,
                  Tell me but where,
         Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere!
         So may’st thou be translated to the skies,
And give resounding grace to all Heaven’s harmonies!


         COMUS. Can any mortal mixture of earthUs mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled! I have oft heard
My mother Circe with the Sirens three,
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I’ll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine
Dwell’st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.
         LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise
That is addressed to unattending ears.
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift
How to regain my severed company,
Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo
To give me answer from her mossy couch.
         COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
         LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth.
         COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides?
         LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf.
         COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why?
         LADY. To seek i’ the valley some cool friendly spring.
         COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady?
         LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return.
         COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them.
         LADY. How easy my misfortune is to hit!
         COMUS. Imports their loss, beside the present need?
         LADY. No less than if I should my brothers lose.
         COMUS. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom?
         LADY. As smooth as ****’s their unrazored lips.
         COMUS. Two such I saw, what time the laboured ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swinked hedger at his supper sat.
I saw them under a green mantling vine,
That crawls along the side of yon small hill,
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots;
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i’ the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook,
And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
         LADY.                          Gentle villager,
What readiest way would bring me to that place?
         COMUS. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
         LADY. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,
In such a scant allowance of star-light,
Would overtask the best land-pilot’s art,
Without the sure guess of well-practised feet.
        COMUS. I know each lane, and every alley green,
******, or bushy dell, of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
Or shroud within these limits, I shall know
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark
From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise,
I can c

But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
Is not afraid, for never through the day
Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

But often from the thorny labyrinth
And tangled branches of the circling wood
The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth
Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love,—within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

Would almost leave the little meadow bare,
For it knows nothing of great pageantry,
Only a few narcissi here and there
Stand separate in sweet austerity,
Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was ****** of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had withered up those lilies white and red
Which, while the boy would through the forest range,
Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied
The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,
And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms
Crushing her ******* in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,
Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth
Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the crystalline
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crowned head,

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,
And a blue wave will be our canopy,
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl
In all their amethystine panoply
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,
And every morn a young and ruddy swain
Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain
By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;
But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store
Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore
At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had
Flown off in search of berried juniper
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy
For my poor lips, his joyous purity
And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean, brightest star
Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring
Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst
To myriad multitudinous blossoming
Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons
That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous
tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,
And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,
Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein
Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,

The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,
For round its rim great creamy lilies float
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat
Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid
To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,
One arm around her boyish paramour,
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen
The moon strip off her misty vestiture
For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid,
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,
Back to the boisterous billow let us go,
And walk all day beneath the hyaline
Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,
And watch the purple monsters of the deep
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

For if my mistress find me lying here
She will not ruth or gentle pity show,
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect!  O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,
And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

And where the little flowers of her breast
Just brake into their milky blossoming,
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,
Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,
And ploughed a ****** furrow with its dart,
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry
On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,
Sobbing for incomplete virginity,
And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,
And all the pain of things unsatisfied,
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing
side.

Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,
And very pitiful to see her die
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known
The joy of passion, that dread mystery
Which not to know is not to live at all,
And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,
Who with Adonis all night long had lain
Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom.

For as a gardener turning back his head
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows
With careless scythe too near some flower bed,
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,
And with the flower’s loosened loneliness
Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

Driving his little flock along the mead
Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide
Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,
Treads down their brimming golden chalices
Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book
Flings himself down upon the reedy grass
And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,
And for a time forgets the hour glass,
Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,
And lets the hot sun **** them, even go these lovers lay.

And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis
Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,
Or else that mightier maid whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should
pass.’

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky,
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the AEgean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips
Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips
And passed into the void, and Venus knew
That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest
With all the wonder of this history,
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest
Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky
On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

The Black Faerie beats her sable wings,
And rises into the dark and midnight sky.
Tonight she needs a ******’s soul to live,
Or else tonight a ****** she must die.

Tonight the dark moon rises in the sky,
’Twill be the time the black arts they hold sway,
And so tonight a ******’s fate is sealed,
If the Black Faerie has her way.

She rises high, unseen by mortal eye,
And casts around, a ******’s scent to find.
She starts, and checks, then starts and checks again,
She’s found a ******’s scent borne on the wind.

Carefully she follows the ætherial trail,
Flying against the wind to trace its source.
She hopes, tonight, successful she will be,
And is determined to stay on her course.

After flying for some time she finds
The scent is getting stronger on the wind,
She’s slowly drawing closer to her prey,
And trusts, soon, the ****** she will find.

When then she sees a hut down in the wood,
Invitingly, a window’s open wide,
The scent is overpoweringly now intense,
So, silently, through the opening she glides.

She spies a truckle bed next to the wall,
A young lady soundly sleeps within.
The Black Faerie hovers o’er the maid,
And senses the dormant ****** power within.

The lady on her back asleep does lie,
Clad only in a white nightgown.
The bedclothes, in night’s warmth pushed aside,
On her breast, the faerie settles down.

She waits a moment listening; all is calm.
And then, before the fay can make a move,
A bright white light enters in the room.
A sparkling fairy’s fluttering above.

“What mischief are you up to now?” she asks.
The Black Faerie’s rooted to the spot.
She’s never seen this beauteous creature before,
And knows not what powers she might have got.

“And who are you?” the black fay asks in turn,
“You cannot be a denizen of the night,
You are much too beautiful for that,
You’re so gracile, and you’re much too bright!”

“Indeed, I am a fairy of the day,
I help the flowers to bud, bloom and blow.
I’d curled up to sleep, inside a rose,
When dark and silent past me you did go.”

“And you, in turn, so vagiley you flew,
Darting through the bosky wood with ease.
My heart stood still, my breath caught in my throat,
I’d never seen such a sight to please.”

“The other fairies of the day I’ve known,
Are bright and gay, and flit from flower to flower.
They idle, and they gossip, and they’re dull,
And I cannot stand them more ower.”

“So when I saw you flying past tonight,
Looking mean and moody dressed in black,
I just knew that I must follow after,
And hoped that you might lead me to the craic.”

The Black Faerie recovers from her fright,
The night’s the time her powers are at their best.
She decides to try to play it cool,
So sits herself down on the ******’s breast.

“Tonight’s the anniversary of my birth,
Which was a year ago at the dark moon.”
The Black Faerie then continued thus,
“And to prevent my death I must act soon.”

“The reason why I am a Faerie Black,
Which I believe is rare in faerykind,
Is because the dark moon was at zenith,
Which caused a problem with my mother’s mind.”

“This caused me, when born, to be jet black,
Which wasn’t any fault of my own.
The day fairies cast us out from them,
And thus, we had to live all alone.”

“Although I tried my best to keep her whole,
Slowly, my dear mother pined away.
And then she told me, something she must tell,
As wasting on her deathbed she lay.”

“If a ******’s life I did live,
Then indeed, a ****** must die.
And before the dark moon’s anniversary,
To get this matter sorted, I should try.”

Because tonight’s the night of the dark moon,
I have traced this ****** to her bed,
Now what my mother told me I must do
I will, and soon this ****** shall be dead.”

“Oh no! Please!” the sparkling fairy said,
“Surely there must be another way!
Instead of sacrificing this lady,
Take my life, I am a ****** fay.”

“Would you freely give your life for hers?”
The Black Fay asked, jumping to her feet.
“To save this lady’s life I surely will,”
The sparkling fairy said, “’Tis only meet.”

“Since her parents died, she’s all alone,
Living in this wild forest drear.
Despite that, she still has many friends,
A lot of wild animals come here.”

“To the sick and injured she gives succour,
And tends the crops and plants round here as well.
In fact, she does more than many fairies,
And has helped the flower’s numbers swell.”

The sparkling fay continued, “Oh Black Faerie,
Please don’t do this vile and evil deed.
As I’ve asked, please take my life instead,
Then, in time, I’m sure you’ll get your meed.”

The sparkling fairy then fell down sobbing,
In between the sleeping lady’s breast,
While the Black Faerie stood there sternly,
Considering the sparkling fay’s request.

The sparkling fairy’s sobbing soon grew louder,
And with her hands and feet she beat the maid.
She’d forgotten whereabouts they were,
She was at once both sad and afraid.

The Black Faerie’s voice also grew louder,
The sparkling fay to cow, and make shut up,
When suddenly, to both of their surprises,
The ****** maid awoke, and then sat up.

Both the fairies froze, and tumbled downwards,
And came to rest in the lady’s lap.
She grasped the Black Faerie very firmly,
Her hand, round the Black Fay’s arms, did wrap.

Sitting straight, the lady then spake thus,
“For a Faerie Black, you’re not too bright.
Although you heard what your mother said,
I don’t believe you understood her right.”

The lady’s other hand was much more gentle,
She held the sparkling fairy to her breast,
And softly said, “Don’t worry, it’s now over,
Try to calm yourself, and have a rest.”

“I have been awake for some time now,
Woken by your voices in my ear.
However I kept my eyes tightly closed,
So your conversation I should hear.”

To the sparkling fairy then she spoke,
“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I heard you offer yourself in my place,
I appreciate you trying to take my part.”

“As for you, you wretched little faerie,
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry
When I heard the evil you intended,
And knew, you’d got wrong, the reason why.”

“I am a pagan, as it happens,
And know about the phases of the moon.
And so, though you were born in darkness,
You actually were also born at noon.”

“This probably is what confused your mother,
The reason that it was dark for your birth,
The moon caused a total eclipse of the sun,
And thus darkness descended over the earth.”

The lady put the Black Fay on her lap,
A tear of sympathy fell from her eye,
“And so, poor thing, you lost your friends and mother,
And now, you know the real reason why.”

“Your mother didn’t know what had happened,
At noon, expecting to give birth to you,
Which is why she slowly lost her reason,
And the day fairies did you both eschew.”

The Black Faerie then started sobbing,
And curled up in a ball upon the bed.
“I always felt that I was unfairly treated,
And knowing that, I wish that I was dead!”

At that, the sparkling fairy gave a wriggle,
And asked the maid if she would put her down.
Then, slowly, she went to the Black Faerie,
And gave a gentle tug on her black gown.

The Black Faerie raised a tear-stained face,
And looked the sparkling fairy in the eye,
Who lifted the crying Faerie to her feet,
And chokingly said, “Please try not to cry.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she told the Faerie,
“You have had to put up with a lot.
Though now you know that you are normal,
I hope, perhaps, you’ll stop your murderous plot.”

The sparkling fay then smiled at the Black Faerie,
Who, through her tears, smiled also,
They then both tightly hugged each other,
And looked like they’d ne’er let each other go.

The Black Faerie turned to face the ******,
And said, “I am quite prepared to die.
I really didn’t want to have to **** you,
I don’t know why my mother said to try.”

The lady said, “You misunderstood her,
She didn’t want you to live all alone.
She wanted you to find a special person,
To be with you, after she had gone.”

“She tried to say, if you lived as a ******,
Then, as a ******, you would die.
Though she left out the personal pronoun,
So on a futile mission you did fly.”

“I don’t know if you really could have killed me,
Though to try, you’d go out of your way.
And I suspect your mother’s time-limit,
Was to make you find a friend without delay.”

“I don’t think that tonight you will die,
On the anniversary of your dark moon.
And now, perhaps, you’ve found a special friend,
So your quest here has granted you a boon.”

Seeing them looking completely right together,
The lady, down upon them both, did smile.
She hoped that they might soon get together,
And to help them, she might have to use some guile.

“You really both do make a lovely couple,
You complement each other in all ways,
Though I suspect, you courageous sparkling fairy,
You won’t be able to both live with your fays.”

“Round my hut I’ve planted many flowers,
Perhaps you two, near them, your home could make.
I would love for you to live here near me,
Won’t you please think on it, for my sake?”

“And now, I am afraid I’m getting tired,
We’ve been awake for most of the night,
And I would like to try and get some sleep,
Before the sun comes up and it gets light.”

“Next to my bed I’ll lay a pillow,
Which you both may use as a bed.
And now I’ll lie down and close my eyes,
I think, by me, enough has been said”

The lady placed a pillow on the floor,
And slowly re-laid down in her bed,
While the fairies, holding hands, flew aloft,
And settled on the pillow, head by head.

She heard them quietly talking to each other,
Though not the actual words that they said,
Then she drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of fairies,
Lying stilly and quiescent in her bed.

She awoke late the next morning,
And wondered what the misplaced pillow meant.
She vaguely remembered something about fairies,
Though put it down to what she had dreamt.

Then stretching and yawning she arose,
Drew back her window curtains and looked out,
When, what she then saw in the garden,
Quite caused her, her senses to doubt.

Every single flower in her garden,
Seemed to have bloomed overnight,
With larger than normal efflorescences,
And overhead, two fairies in full flight.

To her window sill they flew together,
And stood together, standing side by side.
Then told the lady they would like to live here,
While she stared at them with eyes open wide.

It hadn’t been a dream after all,
What happened in the night had been real.
After many years on her own,
She now had two friends who would be leal.

And so, together they all settled down,
The fairies living with her in her home.
She kept a careful eye upon them both
Though sometimes the fays would go and roam

They helped the wild creatures in the wood,
And kept the garden looking nice and neat.
They’d be out by day and by night,
And almost worked themselves off their feet.

Then one day they said to the maid,
That both of them were ever so sorry,
They had to go away for some time,
Though would be coming back, so do not worry.

Every day the lady looked for them,
And kept hoping that they were both all right.
Somehow, she made it through the day,
Then cried herself to sleep every night.

She very nearly gave up hope,
What kept her going was they’d said they’d be back.
She tried her best to keep things going right,
Though to her, things were looking black.

Late one night, she roused from her sleep.
The window ope’d, she thought it was the wind.
Then, irrupting through her casement came,
Her two fays, with two more close behind.

The Black and sparkling fairies lead the way,
Followed by two fairies, very small.
The lady sat, and looked at them in wonder,
From her truckle bed set by the wall.

The Black Faerie settled on her bed,
The sparkling fairy followed close behind.
“We’re sorry to have stayed away so long,
We’ve brought our children with us, please don’t mind.”

At that, the lady looked quite astounded,
“Have you been off with fairy men to dally?”
The two fairies laughed with amusement,
“There are no male fairies, you big wally!”

“We thought, as a pagan, you’d have known
How we maintain our fairy nation.
Female with female fairies manage,
By a process of adosculation.”

The Black Faerie lifted one small fay.
“This lovely dark child is mine.
We’ve decided that we’ll call her Midnight,
To remind us of what’s passed this syne.”

The sparkling fairy lifted up the other.
“And for this blonde beauty I’m to blame.
We could not decide what to call her,
And hoped that you might choose for her a name.”

The lady just sat there in stunned silence,
Quite unable to make any sound.
Oh so happy they had come back to her,
With evidence of the love they’d found.

Once more overcome with emotion,
She let her happy tears flow,
And said, “Please let me think about it,
As soon as I’ve got a name, you’ll know.”

“I’m so very glad you’ve returned,
It was lonely being on my own,
Now you’re back here with your children,
I won’t ever have to feel alone.”

The lady dried her tears, and then smiled,
“I should never have felt so forlorn,
This is a new start for us all,
So I think your child should be named....Dawn.”

Then they all started to laugh and cry together,
Each fairy contented with her child,
And they all lived happily ever after,
In the middle of the forest wild.
*
Grahame Upham
February 2014.

Thrums the bee waggle-dance in a haunt of Indian horsepaths,
Or the shaking leaf one second past the strike of galloping rain
/ Parsimonious lightning, thrifty in its jagged stalks
Against this night of heavy-hearted oaks /
Then the hay-fringed bale of sleep, rolled into a valley of slowed breathing,
Through parting cloud-diabolique, poison-peers the wet toadback of Autumn,
Glowing moon-gristle in the bosky wolf’s beard with its wireframe of teeth.

Cadaverous crotchety gouged out eyes.
Scalped trite and malnourished minds.
Where am I? What has this land become?
My vessel is gutted galled and splayed out upon the enflamed remains of our democracy.
I try to embody the equanimity peaceful   qualities of the lulling Gandhi characters before me...
But ****, I am angry, jolted and saturated in shock in fear.
Being an advocate for the people so dismissively marginalized, is what brings substance to my life.
I look into the eyes of my mirthful clients and future students, my heart winces.
How did I allow this to happen to you?  
A man who so boastfully incinerates and debased the citizens of our land with his farcical vitriol, is no man at all but merely an unsightly shrew, cozily cosseted in his world of soot and pooh.
The bosky gorgeous land we inhabit sobs in noxious fright.
To be despoiled and berated as some "natural right" splintered and tainted to allow the green cash river flow into the dubious maw of the man with no dignity to show.
A man who preens such a degenerated mindset is only aptest to a society in shambles.
Our global haimish home yearns for the equilibrium from which it was born.
In such a seeded tumultuous time my heart is seeped in reverberating sorrow.
Let your love and purity coat your vessel, do not let this barbaric man permeate your soul.
Hold steadfast to the testament of our land
True revolution is budded from a web of genuine connection, not devise brandished weapons.
Don't shroud yourself in misery, break free and be prepared to encite love with your authenticity.

You're thighs are like tree trunks how did they get so enormous?
Perhaps my thighs are the sponges of ancient secrets destined for some grand portent.
Maybe One day I will awake and my thunder thighs will be glazed in lightning and I can do every citizens grocery shopping in a flash dash commotion.
Or perhaps this was something I was born with, and we all know the most bosky beautiful foliage isn't supported by gingerly  meek and cowering twigs, but by Herculean genuine esteemed appendages.

A Discourse on Aerophane Eunomia  9/24/2024

The preterition of bionomically viable mackintoshes perdurable by vivat credenda whorling around catacoustic furor that attempts to array the constellation of all grievances deciphered by compassionate governance is dependent upon the following stipulations and statutes. Primarily, a catadioptric houndstooth complex bionomic superorganism demands a gradgrind dompteuse of psephology (as a stark underestimate of nasute observers primarily overlooked by swingometers) trying to zizel lurdans by vaccimulgent fracedos and forfex haecceity contingencies of nimiety with pushful forcipation at the behest of quokkas affright at amphiscian afterclaps amberjacking dontolesque heydays imperiously governed by interlucation using interfluvian omphalism unreeving humanistic altruism (a tentative renegadism) in spinescent palzogony roiling in salebrosity with bastardized semelparous progeny gorgonizing the polydipsia of pickthank tantony to nebulist algedonic overdrive backfired in mackintosh vulcanization implodent upon portfire calculated to appease a fetishized odontalgia inculcated into modish broadcloth visiogenic maquettes of cultural deformation suddenly vogue with macroscian specters the subsultus of internecine nidifugous loimic periblebsis hobbling the weighage of kerygma better suited to cloistered gnotobiology rather than noisome cultural pettifoggery spooling in chorizont celsitude.

Wedelning qwersy sell-outs corralled by websters and coquelicot contecking compital moral clochards zealous for chryselephantine clavis disproportionate on shibboleths of jarabing jalousies adscripted by jarking foothot jellygraphs jerquing caballine jiggermasts by nasute opportunism attrite on incidental crepitated gerdoying stampedes culvertaging cynomorphic mavericks too nacreous to sustain nebelwerfer mechanomorphic negentropy more predictable as bezique betising for briquets of Sarvodaya finicky to proficuous nektons secondary to lagniappes of nembutsu the catalyst behind synclastic tympanies nettlesome because of elflock forestalled by ipesand nidamental to powellisation for pyretology forever percurrent as a heterodyne trigonometric variance of bounded vacillated voltinism of opaque sastruga henpecking somniation sparvering interpunction to specular umbrage sphacelated sussultatory suretyships for jansky and pulicide in ignivomous deputization of blunt obtuse iopterous conflagration fumigating ipecac into streamlined mechanization of ironmaster wallfish irriguous because of lucrative downtrodden evanescent brehon yet catalyzed by springboking resourcefulness joggling the jamdani into jockeyed cladogenesis intransigently isallobar (resolute in protection of ****** octodonts constituting the bellwethers of aleatory oryzivorous osmol insulating preterition) by chirking global solidarity even in subboreal disagreement with other countries

An oscitation of orrery often siamang in rumchunder rhotacism in celation contingent on shenango tatamae of shagreen nimbose compurgation of dashpot shibboleths of rheotaxis redemptive in the pleoinosis juddering the volplane porbeagle with tangible costive coy popocracy at the detriment of deplorable springhare rasters of tragelaph pseudo-paragons supernal in importunate thremmatology culled from goniometers of elective grillage for tachytelic gonfaloniers to punctuate the valedictory ****** of equity in equipoise suspended as a tantieme of conserved tectospheric terrella (harvested potential energy even when embezzled by chlamydate henchmen) manufactured by testudo uncial migraineurs toiling restlessly even in macroscian umbrage for gradate suffrage a piebald moonraker sphacelation of spurriers above murengers always cognizant of indignant plight but frowning on outright cultural temulentia of ultrageous cacodoxy becoming kuru. Paroxytone recadency of bosky boschveldt pantagruelian scabilonian whangams of pilloried pigeonholes slimmerbacking complex sociodynamic catastrophes abetted by worricrow paradigms obtenebrating cryptotype exists suboptimal because it is coauthored by nyejays gribbean against swoopstake individualism emergent into syndicalized mutualism (a talisman of tegular latticework moonshot telenergy capable of subverting core machinations by singular tentation of togated terpsichorean modifications to camaraderie in a woke-spun world’s sorority—responsible for torpefying virility—troating with lucriferous might yields compromise and efficacy when wed to chilgoza rather than epicene debasements while vouchsafing ambitious masculinity) such that the turncock on insight once clogged by mute ridottos now inundates trouvailles of subtle vastations gradately hedged from interramification to slowly disperse or become vecordy for huckabuck graft guilloched in defiance by skalded vorticism tediferous in contrarian polities orchestrated by chatelaine pedigree to sustain subsidiary alms for witwanton libertines despite such ergotall kilmarge of rancid flagstench purified by secular litotes

Simultaneously, wobbly but resolute mahouts--the mainpernors of scofflaw matachins trying to catamount caudle against elitism--try to obviate cecutiency to immiserate chelonian banderols cadging chevrotain empaths to nebulize matriotism in aimless vitiation of attempted negentropy by nivial centrism only to marvel at summative nolitions all wagered in bailivated wrox galvanized by baized serpentry seahogging zarzuela gamidolatry and out of the greatest cognitive dissonance hoggasters for killcow antithesis of hopsack pragmatica walloped by hotchpot howdah foumarts’ exhortations while flysch decimates their ranks as fitchew murage defaults such that political derricks are delegated to defeat quotidian dentagra even when prominent politician degage aunceled acclaim of asterism militant in pettifoggery despite jurymasted victory over the peccadillos undermining ashplant stulms (arrect in their own malversation) mainsail of rabid contumacy rather than valorous travail resurgent in chrestomathy.  

Tirociniums for timocracy aristarching arguted aretaics against Hakenkreuz and naïve espaliers bolted to boltrope epizoic determinism for witless alamort epilation of oreillet nidifugous inculcation of physiognomancy with improper brassage deskandent in perfunctory interpunction of punitive oneirocritism of radical jolkering innitency by backstay imbrication of aloof ivory-tower nihilism among perverse academic ranks illecebrous because of ichnited analysis of stemson immunifacience of scud by scrimure abandon drooling over picamar cirriped goblin treasures. The scrobiculous backlash of scumble shiding around in cat-lady garish gaudy falsettos betrothed to the superlunary concourse cooperative with silverskin sorbefacient psaphonic acceleration centrifugal from izzat operative in cultural umlaut because of unguicule embracery abroach of illicit pipelines of tubifacient graft sustained by the bonhomie of second-take absconce actinism enveloping the virgations of woke allegiance to afterclaps of alcahest  which underscores the forefront posture intermediary to alexia is a resurgent aphthong of thoughtless consumerist ploys of plashy diatribes against apologetic kerygma swaddling apotropaic aggiornamento above fraying braying jackals of religious aporia preferring the exhilarated wharfinger hobohemia to the muntjac sublimation of all entelechy synclastic towards plurennial pleimorphy for societal phoniatrics to great fanfare and amelioration of the dirigisme by guarded abraxas pergolas so decisive they collectively are both the antecedent catalyst and consequential afterbirth to high-ticket onerous pandation.

The vulpecular zayat zoppa of downtrodden crestfallen haustellum of substandard binary hawseholes become dogcarts to sophomoric banderols specious to tanquams of tantony gaslighted by dupion to either be dipnoous in endeavor (self-consciously dishonest about oppositive support for detraque) or emphatic about declasse enfranchisement darkled by the devastating prospect that authenticity invites anathema from every cordwainer obliged to sustain humane compassion deadeyed by radioactive daws of misguided quasi-astragal autecology . Taradiddles of cruelty wagered in provocative acropathy deserve alpenstocker magnanimity because of invaluable munificence in forever keystoned enhancement of allemande noospheres revalorized into burgeoned tympany and vivid nembutsu earned on the suffrage of the aloof frogmarch hobbled by martingale aegis livid by the contumacy of pretext debaucheries invented by vulpecular Idiocracy to engender the source of the vehement neurergic aspersions ultimately the ultimatum of circular sockdolagers of laborious acequia accolent only to abscissas few others could interdigitate for eventual appeasement of cordial exoteric aspiration of demassified eunomia heartfelt to attune the escaliers of recourse to invest in prosodemic eclaircise that oystercatchers overlocked against the isovol by defeating the froward isorithms of egestuous bannock will enhance nisus and oikonisus simultaneously in a world already famished of fertility in farsighted alacrity committed to the nuclear family. Thus, we need a polyphiloprogenitive growth engine to camber and calver rejuvenated moralism and redoubled enlightenment to jurymast integral noetic virtues establishing paragons of jannock wroth in success woonerfing rectitude in meliorism that refrains from anti-Americanism rather than stultifying the whole system for the mazut of killcow wragapole samara squintifegos spuddling on antebellum travesty and premodern areneidan illiteracy the sastruga of typhonic pessimism better obrogated by reform than reiterated in vandalized scaffmasters so prepossessed by scarfskin acciptrine atrocities it forgets to marvel at our stepwise progression of wondrous cosmic dilatometry piggybacking sidereal lugsails propinquities prize in ephemeral mensuration of holobenthic time at loss with the joss of kismet zazzy in foudroyant entelechy as the clepsydra bleeds festination because of polyacoustic gezellig quesited as the ultimate wonderwork forever perplexed of and tantalized by the selfsame fate of pansophy.

With peaceful intent I extend the broadest bonhomie to repudiate miscegenated compaginations that seem surly, burlesque or menacing when in reality my words have variegated connotations that sprawl elaborate metaphors with maximum creativity sometimes overlooking subtle innuendos too brash to be authentically my asseverated intent

The fallen leaves are the shrouds of hoof prints,
The withers of breeze reined to time-kept trysts,
Gentilissimo, Cavalieri di Corredo, Italian knight
Whose path by pure lover’s look is made clean.

We go back, we go back to the sun caught by handfuls,
Like the Medieval snow melts into Grecian stream.

Gentle knight, to your galloping song of Winter:
The sweeping rush of grass and gathering refrain
Of bells surrounds the long sloping meadow of
The muzzle, snorting freedoms of wildflowers past,
Leaving its bosky thunderbrush of tail like distant
Summer storms and the slackening rhythms of rain.

We go back, we go back to the sun caught by handfuls,
Like the Medieval snow melts into Grecian stream.

The volplaning bird plucks from fish-eyed shallows,
A gargoyle perches on an ***** key, ever sustaining,
A woman plays the lute from man’s hollowed rib,
As the priests with sophistry sweep the dust off sin.

We go back, we go back to the sun caught by handfuls,
Like the Medieval snow melts into Grecian stream.
But the clock cannot turn its face from its tears.

(The latter paragraphs are more persuasive than the introductory one)

Clinched by the cloture of clinkstone nebels exhorted the kerygma to truckle nebulizing egintoch nepionic nevosities once pristine now reformed by aggiornamento nidamental to furor and favor against bisontine imaginative byre by the bobstays of badigeon steeving inclemency sequacious to tantony shabracking incontinence (delegating the shakuhachi of fairer brocades for chiffon simity jaded by permissive recidivism) by pushful skalding spurriers bracing for thalassic ucalegon in abthane absterged amende dire to notitia umbels of ultraism isorithmic lest the echard immanent and prevenient over egelidated soteriology florid and variegated in the elutriation of apodictic truth (rather than crumpled deadwood davenport emotivism) that bewilders emys of lost dirigisme foundering in enthymemes against stalwart erotesis of the maieutic ambit and dominion designated for plebania above the naves skeldering for merciful pontiffs to engage the nembutsu windlass around the hadal novantique (established by hamarchy now regnant abroach of elastane prerogatives) eleutherian in nimble recourse. Sociodynamic abscissae prone to abuna trouncing conscientious acapnotic deployment of moral agastopia ahimsa predicated on soteriology renewed despite the akinesia of precedent and the alameda concatenations of tacenda hinged to ameplography wed to sophistries of psephology designated by psaphonic priority ignorant of the proairesis of liberty vouchsafed by anamorphic noogenesis abetted by sleek balustrades of anbury among assorted desmans thwarting detraque in favor of didascalic diremption of baldfaced balbriggan secularism into culminated quatorzain apotheosis regnant in supernal amaranthine energism hybridized with quietism factive to elect ratiocination even when bereaved of common lionization.

Jawhole fairleads of oppositive causes fantigued in the throes of despotism often invoke festination over fissicostation flagitated primordial flenched titrations of frith betrothed to lambrequin lurdan prisoptometry negligent of lineolated limpkins because the brunt of zaftig bronteums transmogrifies zappy junctures into zarzuela plenary because the zayat is just too hinnable in moral brehon to bend their mettle to hods holobenthic in deontology who champion hopsack qasida emphatic in qawwali derricking a deft future for the industrious dobhash of entelechy of broadened dromonds versed in opodeldoc gilded with olivaster onagers (obsequent to insidious oblations of wokism) ixiodic with newfangled irriguous bonanza rather than iopterous conflagrations of dholes indigned in inaniloquent apyrexy. The paragon for civic moralism is arrayed in a matrix of appurtenances apotropaic in sedated throes of stalwart interpunction in idoneous subservience to vulcanized mackintoshes pegged to aleatory nimonic stridulation, bolted in bedrock faith and thriving with idiochromatic genius umbrilizing hippiatric doomsters (hinnable only in specious zuche alloquy of zayat) and foiling farcical ichnology with transcendent sophianic nidor nidamental to sophrosyne spiritualism allodic to trifling secular strife histing godless hoggasters against integral hodiernal homologation.

The hordeiform consensus defalcates hotchpot zendik zenana zabaglione of scripted lycnoscopes of lycanthropy stipulated by their compital nomogeny often lorikeeting mutual laevoduction despite lapatic overhangs of scruple frowning at lazaret frostworks of drygulched fourgon forcipation of desiccated flysch falsidical brinkmanship of specious standpipes masquerading as salvation but only amounting to the **** of stulms against stanjant in sybotic quatsch quademed to profligacy despite frustraneous defaulting inertia of supercilious protanopia repugnant to our best collective enterprises. Orrery orguinnet oryx is mesothermic to osnaburg bootstraps in the overlock of hamstrung ekistics sunken by irrevocable organdie because emphatic empasm less hobbled by multicultural enallage scacchic with enthalpy gradgrinded through gingerly haqueton abducent to fondink dowitchers (whom droshky appoints preeminent) fixating on constellated faculae just to feague around with fontinal ochlesis of powellization freeboarding on deliberate dilapidation of laches laystalling crambos connumerated in tenure of the ulterior congelation of collimated pataphysics bankrolling insatiable cementum cambering with jagged jacquard bonanza for the thickets of constringed monolithic diaspora callow in coordination juddering ancillary skirmishes of boondoggle to bunting fanfare in the jubbah of aleatory jinks. The immarcesible imparidigitate ormolu quaky lest eupsychics and eurhythmics devolve into hamerkop evulsions of abaft nidor of olid aboulia in stark acropathy mandated by ulterior acyesis they fear diminishing returns of wretched adrogation tag-teamed by gammerstangs of barmcloth jarveys of jasperated emasculation aduncating cultural redundancy in the narrowcasted affiance of hamshackled aftergame cobaltiferous in aggerose vengeance against stanjant and lavolta so steep in alembication that pedestrian andragogy must drail isallobar inculcating isobath as sequacious simplicity becomes the byword of the balbriggan flautino to denature (after toiling decades in isopach verisimilitudes of slugabed fysigunkus isostasy) in the most contrary ways to ithomiid nationalism such that we resort to oriflamme conflagrations of ludic phlegmatic osmol into ****** cacotopia.

****** kymatology in the windlass of obtuse tympanies sculpted of pergola parabolaster pomace klendusic to vagary kirking the testudo bellwethers misyoked to godless mofette trutinates the nimble reedbucks pliant to oscitation equipped eagre to ecdysiast stampedes toward eclaircise because of manufactured wantage jaleos and jarabes among the ghawazis handspike repentantly for habanera pupating into moral fullness and divine nimiety isangelous in proxemic sympatric plerophory in revolutionary phoniatrics aggiornamentos vitative to every twiring turtleback taffrail may the volplane of revelation become a virgation and a vastation against rheotaxis vendible as cascading vecordy dismantled by compital grace convolved with evolved kerygma nacreous as synclastic destiny beneficiating oikonisus and holobenthic communion never a bergamask pretense for opaque scofflaw bedaggle baize nympholepsy outlasts. Allemande iceblinks of verglas saccadic idiorhythmic illaqueating implodent mortmains imbruting thorny thickets of impedimenta for expedient skullduggery coempted by blackmasters gridlocked in ineradicable jamdani often postulate in unstercorated tirades the tentation of indehiscence and the inferiae vaccimulgent in retroactive disgust by throttling ingluvies to traffic isanemone contingent on obeluses halyarding wellaway welkins of whelky crutched on alamode abasia divorced from the veteran paradigm of albescent androlepsia supplanted by annectant wellsprings of dodecafid digladiated bangtail footholds of backstay vestige transmogrified into footling forcipation vaunting cultural enallage lagotically optimized into incorrigible and ingravescent hawsehole highbinder rigmarole hindermated often by eximious sedigitation because of epiphenomenal cnicnodes many hotchpots bury in anachoric huggeries of adoptive dedans tasked with the demurrage of akinesia friendly to dentirostral vogues ever pinguefied by wanigans of wapentake by lucrative woodreeves of bobstaying at all cost.

The woonerf of nimonic stridulation calipacing casefied bickerns of sunbittern stanhope sumpters of monolithic harvested indigent outrage solfatara engenders as cathexis to naïve sondation for spodomancy of restive cladogenesis ironmaster vastation of chiffon brocades of rumchunder rhubarbs of smug cultural isanther and pathetic icterical tomfoolery of bonces of isochrone mugience projicient to glochidate presbyophrenia beziqued by briquets and berceuse mockado canque inert in yawny torporific mazut endeavors of virulent mithridatism only demassified to the recherche limitrophes of perspicacity. The afterclap of uxorious tephra mowing tamburitza grampus of gossypine vernalization of vaccimulgent minnesinger singults sintering crepitated jacana jerkinheads cuculine in scaffmaster voltinism simultaneous to vorticism is the impetus of neutrosophy chockablock with allantoid bosky stulms and stannaries replete with ivorride brackling with whorling sastruga rife with scissures seahogging finite notoriety in headlong skintles convenient to chatelaines of mazopathia aggrieved of atocia hedged in thick jawhole quagmires of skiving snallygaster vigor (the protectorate of stalwart strahl of quotidian industry of both striga and stritch in subtended immunifacience) the progenitor of indomitable suretyship swanskin undinism rackrent in dentagra yet redeemed by resurgent soteriology. In conclusion, among both chlamydate springhares and termagant gammerstangs (both monolithic iceblink orguinette abusers of oriel or oryx) one panders oxter oriflamme trapezes above varsal sterility and the other enlists the camber of architectonic bontbokian pergolas of invidious wrox subservient to widespread epilation and imperious squamation are neither the answers nor the questions mandated by this zeitgeist but (sadly) inevitably supined by the eyeservice of modern neutrosophy. We must handspike, therefore, the springboks through the acequia of nomogeny cooperative with quokkas, vangermytes, jordans, britskas and the grognards never mercenary in their heroic devotions to acipenser acropodia acuminating moral integrity to bypass adiathermancy to institute aerophane eunomia aimed at aeviternity agentive in amberjacking moral virtues from the florilegium for aggiornamento and scrupulous revival of nomothetic noogenesis pliant to persuasive ideogeny forever tantalized (even in elflock) to broaden saffron horizons and vouchsafe prosperity and equity for aborning generations predicated on aboriginal compassions.  

Addendum: With gingerly caution, I exhort anyone to read this keeping in mind that my loose figurative language could be misconstrued as menacing, militant, disrespectful or otherwise disheveled and levies no obligation upon the readership. It is an exegesis of many deep arcane truths and constative hypotheses that should be treated with latitude rather than bartered by counterfeit means to miscegenate nolitions mandating the steepest compurgation and bowdlerization of the thickets of tartarology wagering spiritual warfare against the righteous throne of demassified sophrosyne wisdom persevering beyond the thickets of boschveldt schadenfreude that compital degringolade yeuks for so insistently in rabid compagination commorient with evanescent fables destined to die in the aceldama of conscience over the brehon of moral indigence contrahent to the prerogatives of God himself my vindicator and champion who defeats the bronteum of satanic prestidigitation by vanquishing an honest oversight tethered to a marginal maeiutic clairvoyance misleading in maladroit collimations radically spayed by polyphiloprogenitive cofferdams from the dominion and domain of the righteous and the snares and wickedness of false scales of rabid codswallop cackling for a moment only to be snuffed benighted and forever cast into the deepest barathrum of oblivion. God is my vindicator and my champion and my most earnest ambitions staked on love and fortune remain preeminent in every consideration of soldiered entelechy vanguarded by peremptory cloture in spiritual warfare against petty pettifoggery of jagged cisvestism forever defeated.

Wandering into the woods with bosky lesbians is dangerous. My public lesbianism is in sharp, delineated, homosexual contrast to my at-home ****-diving, membrane-bursting, extraneous, allegorical travails. Ascendancy over Negresses is within reach to the shy, woe-begone & woe-begotten homosexy, post-industrial revolution, neophytic gay-blade.

Wandering into the woods with bosky lesbians is dangerous. My public lesbianism is in sharp, delineated, homosexual contrast to my at-home ****-diving, membrane-bursting, extraneous, allegorical travails. Ascendancy over Negresses is within reach to the shy, woe-begone & woe-begotten homosexy, post-industrial revolution, neophytic gay-blade.