"bower" poems
Lovers entered a forbidden forest bower,
And as they stalked that range, with eyes glazed,
She offered up her hind. Now, with doe eyes,
Deep as his, deep in arousal's sleep, heels fell,
As he knocked and pulled her dark honey hair
And whispered, surrender, into wanting ears,
Softly he drove his hunting command, homing
To his huntress.
Her body braced, yet bade, with heat and vibrance.
Ruthlessly, he ****** his arrow deeper and then
Once more and then again. She bucked fiercely
And defiant, goading his prodding lance ever more
Ever longer, and parting the pink lines of her white
Rose, he was, and once again, Prince to the dark
Dominion of her quarters.
In the middle of this carnal match they paused.
And looking into the forest beyond they saw
A yearling fawn, a feral Goddess, grazing still,
Bathing in a vale, virginal, wholly unmoved
By their act of venery, lustfully playing, in the innocent
Leaves. It was as if they were among her kin, a gentle
Doe and a noble stag. From that moment on
The human hunters did not speak.
Falling, again, rolling eyes were deep in arousal's sleep.
Her back was a crescent moon pocked and wet with dew.
He could feel her heart beating in time with his piercing
Prong, her arching back glistened in the suns spittle
As it broke through the dark and vernal ceiling wood.
In the final shot her quivering buck lowered and broke
And a sound not heard, made a scene, a sweet murmuring
Shuddered and sank onto the floor of the forest leaves
With her tale, taken and told, her breathless breath,
Her nostrils cold and her heated and lanced openings
Dripping, draining; here was a New World’s beginning.
Sated, solemn and softly quaking, his woman sweetly laid,
And now, doomed with her doe eyes, two lovers, fated, made;
She glowed, divine, like the rolling brook that mellowed
Slow, in the vine-dark and golden forest stable,
In Artemis’s wood.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 1:33 PM UTC
The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute's speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
She took you the way a women takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today's paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
9.2k
Love came to Flora asking for a flower
That would of flowers be undisputed queen,
The lily and the rose, long, long had been
Rivals for that high honor. Bards of power
Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower
Like the pale lily with her Juno mien" —
"But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between
Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.
"Give me a flower delicious as the rose
And stately as the lily in her pride" —
But of what color?" — "Rose-red," Love first chose,
Then prayed — "No, lily-white — or, both provide;"
And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed,
And "lily-white" — the queenliest flower that blows.
6.2k
Whan the turuf is thy tour
anonymous Middle English poem, circa the 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
only sullen worms shall note.
What help unto you, then
was all your worldly hope?
***
Original Middle English text:
Whan the turuf is thy tour,
And thy pit is thy bour,
Thy fel and thy whitë throtë
Shullen wormës to notë.
What helpëth thee thennë
Al the worildë wennë?
“Whan the turuf is thy tour” may be one of the oldest carpe diem (“seize the day”) poems in the English language, and an ancestor of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” with its virginity-destroying worms. Keywords/Tags: Middle English, translation, medieval, anonymous, rhyme, rhyming, medieval, lament, complaint, lamentation, turf, tower, pit, bower, skin, throat, worms, note, help, worldly, hope
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 2:56 AM UTC
“Angelica arguta”,
He shows her his wildflowers
“Angelica Susannah”, he says.
And prodded further by her
His heart.
Lingers briefly with the night;
Her affection has power,
But not enough
To keep him
From marching off to fight.
Tristan, son of One Stab,
Brings wildness from the mountains.
Lovely woman from the East,
Fascinated by her,
His passion.
Revels in her bridal bower,
And stops her
Loving any other.
Alfred, eldest son of his father,
Full of rectitude and romance.
Angelica abandoned,
Adrift between the mountains
Becalmed far from the sea.
He takes advantage,
Snatches her soul with riches,
But never captures
Her longing heart.
Years pass and one son gone,
The other lost and mad.
Year of the red grass and
Happiness found
Is felt too soon.
Tristan loves young Isabel,
But Angelica is his doom.
Yet only he survives
The waves that lash her shore,
“Like water in the ice,
She breaks them.”
And in the Spring,
Is gone once more.
Angelica Susannah is buried
Above the box canyon in the meadow
Among the many dead.
Near Samuel’s heart,
The executed Isabel,
And others who follow soon.
Until only Tristan remains,
Left to hunt his nemesis,
The bear inside him.
And dream of one wife lost,
And a lover left behind:
Angelica Susannah
Beside whom he should lie.
He is slain by the bear in Sixty-three,
After forty years of solitude.
And laid to rest in the plot
Between two women he loved,
Isabel, his ingenuous wife
And Susannah, his tragic love.
Do their spirits meet at last
And wander the golden fields,
Or ride out to bathe in the hot springs,
Under the moon of the falling leaves?
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
It is seven this crisp April morning. In woods before the rising path reveals the heath, there, no there, just there are the first bluebells. Most still hide their pendulous bells in sheath-like petals. When open into a bell the end flounces, splits, curls back on itself. Then the petals reveal their delicate shades of light-thriven lavender. The stout purposeful stem meanwhile allows a gathering of bells, no, a necklace of bells, bells laced around the neck.
I cannot look at this flower without knowing it is the colour that so often graces your purposeful frame, arrayed in the simplest clothes, so often in layered friendly shades; so often falling, loose, quiet, light-enhancing as your blue with grey with green eyes that hold my gaze in pillow-closeness, in that magnification of those intimate moments when one can only whisper.
The common bluebell is the first whisper of summer. It is Endymion, of the bower, a 'bower quiet for us and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing'. In that mornings’ moment I am John and you ***** May we this vernal evening sit together as the dusk gathers darkness 'and with full happiness. . . trace the story of Endymion. . . the very music of its name gone into my being'.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 2:01 AM UTC
O happy rose-bud blooming
Upon thy parent tree,--
Nay, thou art too presuming;
For soon the earth entombing
Thy faded charms shall be,
And the chill damp consuming.
O happy skylark springing
Up to the broad blue sky,
Too fearless in thy winging,
Too gladsome in thy singing,
Thou also soon shalt lie
Where no sweet notes are ringing.
And through life's shine and shower
We shall have joy and pain;
But in the summer bower,
And at the morning hour,
We still shall look in vain
For the same bird and flower.
4.3k
"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms." - Milton
WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's **** and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress'd
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; -
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night -
Both together: - let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.
4.2k
Within the gentle heart abideth Love,
As doth a bird within green forest glade,
Neither before the gentle heart was Love,
Nor Love ere gentle heart by Nature made.
Created was the sun,
And lo, his radiance everywhere held sway,
Nor was before the sun;
Love doth unto all gentleness aspire,
And in the self-same way
Doth clarity unto clear flame of fire.
Love’s fire is kindled in the gentle heart,
As virtue is within the precious stone;
From out the star no glory doth depart
Until made gentle by the sun alone.
When the sun hath drawn forth
By his own strength all that which is not meet,
The star doth prove its worth.
Thus to the heart, by Nature fashioned so
Gentle and pure and sweet,
The love of woman like a star doth go.
The reason Love in gentle heart doth stay
Is why the fire unto the torch-head flies,
Burning as he doth fancy, bright and gay,
And were too proud to do so otherwise.
But Nature’s cruel scheme
Contrasteth Love as water, flame; as heat,
Quelled by the cooling stream.
In gentle heart doth Love his bower divine,
Since like with like must meet,
Thus diamonds in the iron of the mine.
Upon the mire the sun sheds his bright rays,
That is still vile, nor doth the sun turn cold:
“Gentle am I by birth,” the proud man says.
33 He, mire, and the sun, gentleness, I hold.
Let no man think that he
May be possessed of gentleness, although
He boast a king’s degree,
Unless a gentle heart be found in him:
The water is aglow
With stars, and yet the heavens have not grown dim.
God the Creator in heaven’s mind of grace
Shines brighter than before our eyes the sun;
There it is given to see Him face to face,
Whence in their beauty the skies, serving one
Just God, to Him do turn
And the blest end of primal love fulfil.
Thus the truth which doth burn
In my sweet Lady’s eyes she should make clear,
Of her own gentle will,
To him who in her service tarries near.
My Lady, God will say: “Didst thou not fear,”
(When my soul standeth yonder in His sight:)
“To pass the heavens and seek Me even here,
Vain love pursuing with My image dight?
To Me doth praise belong
And to the Queen of Heaven, who from her sphere
Of glory endeth wrong.”
Then I could plead: “Thy angels up above,
O Lord, like her appear;
I did not sin in giving her my love.”
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 11:13 PM UTC
A little while a little love
The hour yet bears for thee and me
Who have not drawn the veil to see
If still our heaven be lit above.
Thou merely, at the day’s last sigh,
Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone;
And I have heard the night-wind cry
And deemed its speech mine own.
A little while a little love
The scattering autumn hoards for us
Whose bower is not yet ruinous
Nor quite unleaved our songless grove.
Only across the shaken boughs
We hear the flood-tides seek the sea,
And deep in both our hearts they rouse
One wail for thee and me.
A little while a little love
May yet be ours who have not said
The word it makes our eyes afraid
To know that each is thinking of.
Not yet the end: be our lips dumb
In smiles a little season yet:
I’ll tell thee, when the end is come,
How we may best forget.
3.9k
I dreamed that dead, and meditating,
I lay upon a grave, or bed,
(at least, some cold and close-built bower).
In the cold heart, its final thought
stood frozen, drawn immense and clear,
stiff and idle as I was there;
and we remained unchanged together
for a year, a minute, an hour.
Suddenly there was a motion,
as startling, there, to every sense
as an explosion. Then it dropped
to insistent, cautious creeping
in the region of the heart,
prodding me from desperate sleep.
I raised my head. A slight young ****
had pushed up through the heart and its
green head was nodding on the breast.
(All this was in the dark.)
It grew an inch like a blade of grass;
next, one leaf shot out of its side
a twisting, waving flag, and then
two leaves moved like a semaphore.
The stem grew thick. The nervous roots
reached to each side; the graceful head
changed its position mysteriously,
since there was neither sun nor moon
to catch its young attention.
The rooted heart began to change
(not beat) and then it split apart
and from it broke a flood of water.
Two rivers glanced off from the sides,
one to the right, one to the left,
two rushing, half-clear streams,
(the ribs made of them two cascades)
which assuredly, smooth as glass,
went off through the fine black grains of earth.
The **** was almost swept away;
it struggled with its leaves,
lifting them fringed with heavy drops.
A few drops fell upon my face
and in my eyes, so I could see
(or, in that black place, thought I saw)
that each drop contained a light,
a small, illuminated scene;
the weed-deflected stream was made
itself of racing images.
(As if a river should carry all
the scenes that it had once reflected
shut in its waters, and not floating
on momentary surfaces.)
The **** stood in the severed heart.
"What are you doing there?" I asked.
It lifted its head all dripping wet
(with my own thoughts?)
and answered then: "I grow," it said,
"but to divide your heart again."
3.8k
"Now did you mark a falcon,
Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
But what beneath her wing?
It may have been a ribbon,
Or it may have been a ring."--
"I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day:
And for your love, my sister dove,
I 'frayed the thief away."--
"Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffing round my garden bound,
Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me."--
"I heard a hound, high-born sister,
Stood baying at the moon:
I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon."--
"Or did you meet a pretty page
Sat swinging on the gate;
Sat whistling, whistling like a bird,
Or may be slept too late:
With eaglets broidered on his cap,
And eaglets on his glove?
If you had turned his pockets out,
You had found some pledge of love."--
"I met him at this daybreak,
Scarce the east was red:
Lest the creaking gate should anger you,
I packed him home to bed."--
"O patience, sister. Did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,
Come home across the desolate sea
To woo me for his wife?
And in his heart my heart is locked,
And in his life my life."--
"I met a nameless man, sister,
Who loitered round our door:
I said: Her husband loves her much.
And yet she loves him more."--
"Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,
A lie, a wicked lie;
I have none other love but him,
Nor will have till I die.
And you have turned him from our door,
And stabbed him with a lie:
I will go seek him thro' the world
In sorrow till I die."--
"Go seek in sorrow, sister,
And find in sorrow too:
If thus you shame our father's name
My curse go forth with you."
3.7k
Every valley drinks,
Every dell and hollow:
Where the kind rain sinks and sinks,
Green of Spring will follow.
Yet a lapse of weeks
Buds will burst their edges,
Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks,
In the woods and hedges;
Weave a bower of love
For birds to meet each other,
Weave a canopy above
Nest and egg and mother.
But for fattening rain
We should have no flowers,
Never a bud or leaf again
But for soaking showers;
Never a mated bird
In the rocking tree-tops,
Never indeed a flock or herd
To graze upon the lea-crops.
Lambs so woolly white,
Sheep the sun-bright leas on,
They could have no grass to bite
But for rain in season.
We should find no moss
In the shadiest places,
Find no waving meadow-grass
Pied with broad-eyed daisies;
But miles of barren sand,
With never a son or daughter,
Not a lily on the land,
Or lily on the water.
3.8k
It's oh in Paradise that I fain would be,
Away from earth and weariness and all beside;
Earth is too full of loss with its dividing sea,
But Paradise upbuilds the bower for the bride.
Where flowers are yet in bud while the boughs are green,
I would get quit of earth and get robed for heaven;
Putting on my raiment white within the screen,
Putting on my crown of gold whose gems are seven
Fair is the fourfold river that maketh no moan,
Fair are the trees fruit-bearing of the wood,
Fair are the gold and bdellium and the onyx stone,
And I know the gold of that land is good.
O my love, my dove, lift up your eyes
Toward the eastern gate like an opening rose;
You and I who parted will meet in Paradise,
Pass within and sing when the gates unclose.
This life is but the passage of a day,
This life is but a pang and all is over;
But in the life to come which fades not away
Every love shall abide and every lover.
He who wore out pleasure and mastered all lore,
Solomon, wrote "Vanity of vanities:"
Down to death, of all that went before
In his mighty long life, the record is this.
With loves by the hundred, wealth beyond measure,
Is this he who wrote "Vanity of vanities"?
Yea, "Vanity of vanities" he saith of pleasure,
And of all he learned set his seal to this.
Yet we love and faint not, for our love is one,
And we hope and flag not, for our hope is sure,
Although there be nothing new beneath the sun
And no help for life and for death no cure.
The road to death is life, the gate of life is death,
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane;
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again.
Be the road short, and be the gate near,--
Shall a short road tire, a strait gate appall?
The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear,
And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.
3.5k
1
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower—
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum—
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
3.6k
When fierce conflicting passions urge
The breast, where love is wont to glow,
What mind can stem the stormy surge
Which rolls the tide of human woe?
The hope of praise, the dread of shame,
Can rouse the tortur’d breast no more;
The wild desire, the guilty flame,
Absorbs each wish it felt before.
But if affection gently thrills
The soul, by purer dreams possest,
The pleasing balm of mortal ills
In love can soothe the aching breast:
If thus thou comest in disguise,
Fair Venus! from thy native heaven,
What heart, unfeeling, would despise
The sweetest boon the Gods have given?
But, never from thy golden bow,
May I beneath the shaft expire!
Whose creeping venom, sure and slow,
Awakes an all-consuming fire:
Ye racking doubts! ye jealous fears!
With others wage internal war;
Repentance! source of future tears,
From me be ever distant far!
May no distracting thoughts destroy
The holy calm of sacred love!
May all the hours be winged with joy,
Which hover faithful hearts above!
Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine
May I with some fond lover sigh!
Whose heart may mingle pure with mine,
With me to live, with me to die!
My native soil! belov’d before,
Now dearer, as my peaceful home,
Ne’er may I quit thy rocky shore,
A hapless banish’d wretch to roam!
This very day, this very hour,
May I resign this fleeting breath!
Nor quit my silent humble bower;
A doom, to me, far worse than death.
Have I not heard the exile’s sigh,
And seen the exile’s silent tear,
Through distant climes condemn’d to fly,
A pensive, weary wanderer here?
Ah! hapless dame! no sire bewails,
No friend thy wretched fate deplores,
No kindred voice with rapture hails
Thy steps within a stranger’s doors.
Perish the fiend! whose iron heart
To fair affection’s truth unknown,
Bids her he fondly lov’d depart,
Unpitied, helpless, and alone;
Who ne’er unlocks with silver key,
The milder treasures of his soul;
May such a friend be far from me,
And Ocean’s storms between us roll!
3.5k
.
Lovers entered a forbidden forest bower,
And as they stalked that range, with eyes glazed,
She offered up her hind. Now, with doe eyes,
Deep as his, deep in arousal's sleep, heels fell,
As he knocked and pulled her dark honey hair
And whispered, surrender, into wanting ears,
Softly he drove his hunting command, homing
To his huntress.
Her body braced, yet bade, with heat and vibrance.
Ruthlessly, he ****** his arrow deeper and then
Once more and then again. She bucked fiercely
And defiant, goading his prodding lance ever more
Ever longer, and parting the pink lines of her white
Rose, he was, and once again, Prince to the dark
Dominion of her quarters.
In the middle of this carnal match they paused.
And looking into the forest beyond they saw
A yearling fawn, a feral Goddess, grazing still,
Bathing in a vale, virginal, wholly unmoved
By their act of venery, lustfully playing, in the innocent
Leaves. It was as if they were among her kin, a gentle
Doe and a noble stag. From that moment on
The human hunters did not speak.
Falling, again, rolling eyes were deep in arousal's sleep.
Her back was a crescent moon pocked and wet with dew.
He could feel her heart beating in time with his piercing
Prong, her arching back glistened in the suns spittle
As it broke through the dark and vernal ceiling wood.
In the final shot her quivering buck lowered and broke
And a sound not heard, made a scene, a sweet murmuring
Shuddered and sank onto the floor of the forest leaves
With her tale, taken and told, her breathless breath,
Her nostrils cold and her heated and lanced openings
Dripping, draining; here was a New World’s beginning.
Sated, solemn and softly quaking, his woman sweetly laid,
And now, doomed with her doe eyes, two lovers, fated, made;
She glowed, divine, like the rolling brook that mellowed
Slow, in the vine-dark and golden forest stable,
In Artemis’s wood.
.
May 3, 2018
May 3, 2018 at 2:50 PM UTC
I have always loved you
because you are Jace Wayland
I found the sincerest thoughts
from every word you've said.
Transparent
is what you have always been.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
From citron-bower be her bed,
cut from branch of tree a-flower,
fashioned for her maidenhead.
From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,
cut the width of board and lathe,
carve the feet from myrtle-wood.
Let the palings of her bed
be quince and box-wood overlaid
with the scented bark of yew.
That all the wood in blossoming,
may calm her heart and cool her blood,
for losing of her maidenhood.
3.1k
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death …
—A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
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A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
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I stood flat-footed upon an eroding hill
Here the sweet peas, on tip-toe for a fight
With wing of coarsest black o'er delicate night
And spiteful fingers grasping at all beauty
To bind us all in deeds unworthy
Oh, toxic wind and fertile rain
Disperse the fragrance of this pain
In healing gardens root a seed
Sprout the bliss we sorely need
This tiny pulse of life we hold
Thrives in soil tilled with love
And tender vines create a bower
Of sweet pea tended, brought to flower
I stand bare foot on an erupting volcanic mount
Here the sweet peas, on tip toe for a flight
With wing of justice verity o’er delicate sight
And nails that compassionately snowball serenity
To bind us all with concord and altruism
Oh, acidic rain share the tears
Wash thy tainted eye-sight
Then crux us in the high-yield land
As we germinate to heaven’s height
The seed so robust and fertile
A shell encased with human forms
The greenness of reflected sextile
Oh Sweet pea, our mirrored storm
*Inspired by a stanza from Keats' poem:
I stood tip-toe upon a little hill
Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wing of gentle flush o’er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings."*
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 9:11 AM UTC
Harken My Daughters
by Solitaire Archer
Harken My Daughters I bid listen to me
And as I say these Words So Mote it be
Teach her from now till time is forgot
Teach her broom and teach her ***
Teach now no reason to hide
Teach her scents and times and tides
Teach her hues and Teach her to bide
Teach her Moons and teach her flowers
Teach her herbs and to keepsafe Our bower
Teach her Air and Water and Fire
Teach her Oak and Teach her lyre
No buildings of Stone No meter high Towers
Let her Dance in the Snow and Dance in the Showers
Hark to me my Daughters dear Teach her so she has naught to fear
Show her Signs and cards and runes
Teach to her to call down the Moon
Teach her Sight and Teach her Bane
Teach her to invoke my Name
in my Place too- call down the Power
In our Circles or in our Bowers
As I have taught now you must too
Pass it forward your line ensue
Daughter to daughter your line in Light
for this moment forward as far as Sight
Witch follows Witch for eternitys Flight
Daughter to Daugther gives Power and Might
Harken My Daughters Listen me
Child go live it
So Mote It Be
These are my words, This is my way.
Doyenne Solita Arcanna ShadoeWalker @2012
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:59 PM UTC
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?
There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.
The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.
There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.
And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.
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