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On Hellespont, guilty of true love’s blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoin’d by Neptune’s might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
And offer’d as a dower his burning throne,
Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
The outside of her garments were of lawn,
The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
Her wide sleeves green, and border’d with a grove,
Where Venus in her naked glory strove
To please the careless and disdainful eyes
Of proud Adonis, that before her lies;
Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,
From whence her veil reach’d to the ground beneath;
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives;
Many would praise the sweet smell as she past,
When ’twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And beat from thence, have lighted there again.
About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone,
Which lighten’d by her neck, like diamonds shone.
She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind
Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind,
Or warm or cool them, for they took delight
To play upon those hands, they were so white.
Buskins of shells, all silver’d, used she,
And branch’d with blushing coral to the knee;
Where sparrows perch’d, of hollow pearl and gold,
Such as the world would wonder to behold:
Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,
Which as she went, would chirrup through the bills.
Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin’d,
And looking in her face, was strooken blind.
But this is true; so like was one the other,
As he imagin’d Hero was his mother;
And oftentimes into her ***** flew,
About her naked neck his bare arms threw,
And laid his childish head upon her breast,
And with still panting rock’d there took his rest.
So lovely-fair was Hero, Venus’ nun,
As Nature wept, thinking she was undone,
Because she took more from her than she left,
And of such wondrous beauty her bereft:
Therefore, in sign her treasure suffer’d wrack,
Since Hero’s time hath half the world been black.

Amorous Leander, beautiful and young
(Whose tragedy divine MusÆus sung),
Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none
For whom succeeding times make greater moan.
His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,
Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,
Would have allur’d the vent’rous youth of Greece
To hazard more than for the golden fleece.
Fair Cynthia wish’d his arms might be her sphere;
Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there.
His body was as straight as Circe’s wand;
Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand.
Even as delicious meat is to the taste,
So was his neck in touching, and surpast
The white of Pelops’ shoulder: I could tell ye,
How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly;
And whose immortal fingers did imprint
That heavenly path with many a curious dint
That runs along his back; but my rude pen
Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men,
Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice
That my slack Muse sings of Leander’s eyes;
Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
That leapt into the water for a kiss
Of his own shadow, and, despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.
Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen,
Enamour’d of his beauty had he been.
His presence made the rudest peasant melt,
That in the vast uplandish country dwelt;
The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov’d with nought,
Was mov’d with him, and for his favour sought.
Some swore he was a maid in man’s attire,
For in his looks were all that men desire,—
A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,
A brow for love to banquet royally;
And such as knew he was a man, would say,
“Leander, thou art made for amorous play;
Why art thou not in love, and lov’d of all?
Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.”

The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis, kept a solemn feast.
Thither resorted many a wandering guest
To meet their loves; such as had none at all
Came lovers home from this great festival;
For every street, like to a firmament,
Glister’d with breathing stars, who, where they went,
Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem’d
Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem’d
As if another Pha{”e}ton had got
The guidance of the sun’s rich chariot.
But far above the loveliest, Hero shin’d,
And stole away th’ enchanted gazer’s mind;
For like sea-nymphs’ inveigling harmony,
So was her beauty to the standers-by;
Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star
(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car
From Latmus’ mount up to the gloomy sky,
Where, crown’d with blazing light and majesty,
She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood
Than she the hearts of those that near her stood.
Even as when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase,
Wretched Ixion’s shaggy-footed race,
Incens’d with savage heat, gallop amain
From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain,
So ran the people forth to gaze upon her,
And all that view’d her were enamour’d on her.
And as in fury of a dreadful fight,
Their fellows being slain or put to flight,
Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead-strooken,
So at her presence all surpris’d and tooken,
Await the sentence of her scornful eyes;
He whom she favours lives; the other dies.
There might you see one sigh, another rage,
And some, their violent passions to assuage,
Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late,
For faithful love will never turn to hate.
And many, seeing great princes were denied,
Pin’d as they went, and thinking on her, died.
On this feast-day—O cursed day and hour!—
Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower
To Venus’ temple, where unhappily,
As after chanc’d, they did each other spy.

So fair a church as this had Venus none:
The walls were of discolour’d jasper-stone,
Wherein was Proteus carved; and over-head
A lively vine of green sea-agate spread,
Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung,
And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung.
Of crystal shining fair the pavement was;
The town of Sestos call’d it Venus’ glass:
There might you see the gods in sundry shapes,
Committing heady riots, ******, rapes:
For know, that underneath this radiant flower
Was Danae’s statue in a brazen tower,
Jove slyly stealing from his sister’s bed,
To dally with Idalian Ganimed,
And for his love Europa bellowing loud,
And tumbling with the rainbow in a cloud;
Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net,
Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set;
Love kindling fire, to burn such towns as Troy,
Sylvanus weeping for the lovely boy
That now is turn’d into a cypress tree,
Under whose shade the wood-gods love to be.
And in the midst a silver altar stood:
There Hero, sacrificing turtles’ blood,
Vail’d to the ground, veiling her eyelids close;
And modestly they opened as she rose.
Thence flew Love’s arrow with the golden head;
And thus Leander was enamoured.
Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gazed,
Till with the fire that from his count’nance blazed
Relenting Hero’s gentle heart was strook:
Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is over-rul’d by fate.
When two are stript, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows, let it suffice,
What we behold is censur’d by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?

He kneeled, but unto her devoutly prayed.
Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said,
“Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him;”
And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near him.
He started up, she blushed as one ashamed,
Wherewith Leander much more was inflamed.
He touched her hand; in touching it she trembled.
Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled.
These lovers parleyed by the touch of hands;
True love is mute, and oft amazed stands.
Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled,
The air with sparks of living fire was spangled,
And night, deep drenched in misty Acheron,
Heaved up her head, and half the world upon
Breathed darkness forth (dark night is Cupid’s day).
And now begins Leander to display
Love’s holy fire, with words, with sighs, and tears,
Which like sweet music entered Hero’s ears,
And yet at every word she turned aside,
And always cut him off as he replied.
At last, like to a bold sharp sophister,
With cheerful hope thus he accosted her.

“Fair creature, let me speak without offence.
I would my rude words had the influence
To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine,
Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine.
Be not unkind and fair; misshapen stuff
Are of behaviour boisterous and rough.
O shun me not, but hear me ere you go.
God knows I cannot force love as you do.
My words shall be as spotless as my youth,
Full of simplicity and naked truth.
This sacrifice, (whose sweet perfume descending
From Venus’ altar, to your footsteps bending)
Doth testify that you exceed her far,
To whom you offer, and whose nun you are.
Why should you worship her? Her you surpass
As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass.
A diamond set in lead his worth retains;
A heavenly nymph, beloved of human swains,
Receives no blemish, but ofttimes more grace;
Which makes me hope, although I am but base:
Base in respect of thee, divine and pure,
Dutiful service may thy love procure.
And I in duty will excel all other,
As thou in beauty dost exceed Love’s mother.
Nor heaven, nor thou, were made to gaze upon,
As heaven preserves all things, so save thou one.
A stately builded ship, well rigged and tall,
The ocean maketh more majestical.
Why vowest thou then to live in Sestos here
Who on Love’s seas more glorious wouldst appear?
Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouched, will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine.
What difference betwixt the richest mine
And basest mould, but use? For both, not used,
Are of like worth. Then treasure is abused
When misers keep it; being put to loan,
In time it will return us two for one.
Rich robes themselves and others do adorn;
Neither themselves nor others, if not worn.
Who builds a palace and rams up the gate
Shall see it ruinous and desolate.
Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish.
Lone women like to empty houses perish.
Less sins the poor rich man that starves himself
In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf,
Than such as you. His golden earth remains
Which, after his decease, some other gains.
But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone,
When you fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none.
Or, if it could, down from th’enameled sky
All heaven would come to claim this legacy,
And with intestine broils the world destroy,
And quite confound nature’s sweet harmony.
Well therefore by the gods decreed it is
We human creatures should enjoy that bliss.
One is no number; maids are nothing then
Without the sweet society of men.
Wilt thou live single still? One shalt thou be,
Though never singling ***** couple thee.
Wild savages, that drink of running springs,
Think water far excels all earthly things,
But they that daily taste neat wine despise it.
Virginity, albeit some highly prize it,
Compared with marriage, had you tried them both,
Differs as much as wine and water doth.
Base bullion for the stamp’s sake we allow;
Even so for men’s impression do we you,
By which alone, our reverend fathers say,
Women receive perfection every way.
This idol which you term virginity
Is neither essence subject to the eye
No, nor to any one exterior sense,
Nor hath it any place of residence,
Nor is’t of earth or mould celestial,
Or capable of any form at all.
Of that which hath no being do not boast;
Things that are not at all are never lost.
Men foolishly do call it virtuous;
What virtue is it that is born with us?
Much less can honour be ascribed thereto;
Honour is purchased by the deeds we do.
Believe me, Hero, honour is not won
Until some honourable deed be done.
Seek you for chastity, immortal fame,
And know that some have wronged Diana’s name?
Whose name is it, if she be false or not
So she be fair, but some vile tongues will blot?
But you are fair, (ay me) so wondrous fair,
So young, so gentle, and so debonair,
As Greece will think if thus you live alone
Some one or other keeps you as his own.
Then, Hero, hate me not nor from me fly
To follow swiftly blasting infamy.
Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath.
Tell me, to whom mad’st thou that heedless oath?”

“To Venus,” answered she and, as she spake,
Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace
To Jove’s high court.
He thus replied: “The rites
In which love’s beauteous empress most delights
Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel,
Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil.
Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn
For thou in vowing chastity hast sworn
To rob her name and honour, and thereby
Committ’st a sin far worse than perjury,
Even sacrilege against her deity,
Through regular and formal purity.
To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands.
Such sacrifice as this Venus demands.”

Thereat she smiled and did deny him so,
As put thereby, yet might he hope for moe.
Which makes him quickly re-enforce his speech,
And her in humble manner thus beseech.
“Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve,
Yet for her sake, whom you have vowed to serve,
Abandon fruitless cold virginity,
The gentle queen of love’s sole enemy.
Then shall you most resemble Venus’ nun,
When Venus’ sweet rites are performed and done.
Flint-breasted Pallas joys in single life,
But Pallas and your mistress are at strife.
Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous,
But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus,
Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice.
Fair fools delight to be accounted nice.
The richest corn dies, if it be not reaped;
Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept.”

These arguments he used, and many more,
Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.
Hero’s looks yielded but her words made war.
Women are won when they begin to jar.
Thus, having swallowed Cupid’s golden hook,
The more she strived, the deeper was she strook.
Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still
And would be thought to grant against her will.
So having paused a while at last she said,
“Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?
Ay me, such words as these should I abhor
And yet I like them for the orator.”

With that Leander stooped to have embraced her
But from his spreading arms away she cast her,
And thus bespake him: “Gentle youth, forbear
To touch the sacred garments which I wear.
Upon a rock and underneath a hill
Far from the town (where all is whist and still,
Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand,
Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land,
Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus
In silence of the night to visit us)
My turret stands and there, God knows, I play.
With Venus’ swans and sparrows all the day.
A dwarfish beldam bears me company,
That hops about the chamber where I lie,
And spends the night (that might be better spent)
In vain discourse and apish merriment.
Come thither.” As she spake this, her tongue tripped,
For unawares “come thither” from her slipped.
And suddenly her former colour changed,
And here and there her eyes through anger ranged.
And like a planet, moving several ways,
At one self instant she, poor soul, assays,
Loving, not to love at all, and every part
Strove to resist the motions of her heart.
And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such
As might have made heaven stoop to have a touch,
Did she uphold to Venus, and again
Vowed spotless chastity, but all in vain.
Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings,
Her vows above the empty air he flings,
All deep enraged, his sinewy bow he bent,
And shot a shaft that burning from him went,
Wherewith she strooken, looked so dolefully,
As made love sigh to see his tyranny.
And as she wept her tears to pearl he turned,
And wound them on his arm and for her mourned.
Then towards the palace of the destinies
Laden with languishment and grief he flies,
And to those stern nymphs humbly made request
Both might enjoy each other, and be blest.
But with a ghastly dreadful
It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave

Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed
To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which
are

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
That morning star which does not dread the sun,
And budding marjoram which but to kiss
Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make
Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering
gold.

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
In these still haunts, where never foot of man
Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
And why the hapless nightingale forbears
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

And I will sing how sad Proserpina
Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
And lure the silver-breasted Helena
Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
And hidden in a grey and misty veil
Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
We may behold Her face who long ago
Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,
And whose sad house with pillaged portico
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
Is better than a thousand victories,
Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
The woods of white Colonos are not here,
On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
Whose very name should be a memory
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
The lute of Adonais:  with his lips Song passed away.

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
One silver voice to sing his threnody,
But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
When on that riven night and stormy sea
Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk
alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
In passionless and fierce virginity
Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
The star that shook above the Eastern hill
Holds unassailed its argent armoury
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight—
O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
The weary soul of man in troublous need,
And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
And what enchantment held the king in thrall
When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon
Being enamoured of a damask rose
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
The pale usurper of its tribute grows
From a thin sickle to a silver shield
And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
And overstay the swallow, and the hum
Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
Wept for myself, and so was purified,
And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down
Is not so musical, the clammy gold
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
Although the cheating merchants of the mart
With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
Ay! though the crowded factories beget
The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name
From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
Being a better mirror of his age
In all his pity, love, and weariness,
Than those who can but copy common things,
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown,
And men can prophesy about the sun,
And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,
Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon
That they have spied on beauty; what if we
Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

What profit if this scientific age
Burst through our gates with all its retinue
Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
To make one life more beautiful, one day
More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
Hath borne again a noisy progeny
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
Hurls them against the august hierarchy
Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
Create the new Ideal rule for man!
Methinks that was not my inheritance;
For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
Blew all its torches out:  I did not note
The waning hours, to young Endymions
Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

Mark how the yellow iris wearily
Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
Which ‘gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

Come let us go, against the pallid shield
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
The corncrake nested in the unmown field
Answers its mate, across the misty stream
On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass,
In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
Hung in the burning east:  see, the red rim
O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,—
Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
Than could be tested in a crucible!—
But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
BOOK I

S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. "Why do you wind no horn?' she said
"And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
"We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

"My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

"What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
"I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

"Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

"I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
"And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

"O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, "It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
"Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

"Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
"A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
"O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
"Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

"Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, "God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  "Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  "You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick. Tell On.

Oisin. Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, "His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds



























































­

























Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

"An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, ""Unjust, unjust';
And ""My speed is a weariness,' falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'

#######
BOOK II
#######

NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
And then away, away, like whirling flames;
And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
"Gaze no more on the phantoms,' Niamh said,
And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
And her bright body, sang of faery and man
Before God was or my old line began;
Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
And how those lovers
S.  Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft ***** rose and fell.

S.  Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain
On Gabhra's raven-covered plain;
But where are your noble kith and kin,
And from what country do you ride?'

'My father and my mother are
Aengus and Edain, my own name
Niamh, and my country far
Beyond the tumbling of this tide.'

'What dream came with you that you came
Through bitter tide on foam-wet feet?
Did your companion wander away
From where the birds of Aengus wing?'
Thereon did she look haughty and sweet:
'I have not yet, war-weary king,
Been spoken of with any man;
Yet now I choose, for these four feet
Ran through the foam and ran to this
That I might have your son to kiss.'

'Were there no better than my son
That you through all that foam should run?'

'I loved no man, though kings besought,
Until the Danaan poets brought
Rhyme that rhymed upon Oisin's name,
And now I am dizzy with the thought
Of all that wisdom and the fame
Of battles broken by his hands,
Of stories builded by his words
That are like coloured Asian birds
At evening in their rainless lands.'

O Patrick, by your brazen bell,
There was no limb of mine but fell
Into a desperate gulph of love!
'You only will I wed,' I cried,
'And I will make a thousand songs,
And set your name all names above,
And captives bound with leathern thongs
Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
At evening in my western dun.'

'O Oisin, mount by me and ride
To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
Where men have heaped no burial-mounds,
And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
Where broken faith has never been known
And the blushes of first love never have flown;
And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
Whose long wool whiter than sea-froth flows,
And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
And oil and wine and honey and milk,
And always never-anxious sleep;
While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
And a hundred ladies, merry as birds,
Who when they dance to a fitful measure
Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
And you shall know the Danaan leisure;
And Niamh be with you for a wife.'
Then she sighed gently, 'It grows late.
Music and love and sleep await,
Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
The red sun falls and the world grows dim.'

And then I mounted and she bound me
With her triumphing arms around me,
And whispering to herself enwound me;
He shook himself and neighed three times:
Caoilte, Conan, and Finn came near,
And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
And bid me stay, with many a tear;
But we rode out from the human lands.
In what far kingdom do you go'
Ah Fenians, with the shield and bow?
Or are you phantoms white as snow,
Whose lips had life's most prosperous glow?
O you, with whom in sloping vallcys,
Or down the dewy forest alleys,
I chased at morn the flying deer,
With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
And heard the foemen's bucklers rattle,
And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
And Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
Where are you with your long rough hair?
You go not where the red deer feeds,
Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.

S.  Patrick. Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
Companions long accurst and dead,
And hounds for centuries dust and air.

Oisin. We galloped over the glossy sea:
I know not if days passed or hours,
And Niamh sang continually
Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
Lulled weariness, and softly round
My human sorrow her white arms wound.
We galloped; now a hornless deer
Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
All pearly white, save one red ear;
And now a lady rode like the wind
With an apple of gold in her tossing hand;
And a beautiful young man followed behind
With quenchless gaze and fluttering hair.
'Were these two born in the Danaan land,
Or have they breathed the mortal air?'

'Vex them no longer,' Niamh said,
And sighing bowed her gentle head,
And sighing laid the pearly tip
Of one long finger on my lip.

But now the moon like a white rose shone
In the pale west, and the sun'S rim sank,
And clouds atrayed their rank on rank
About his fading crimson ball:
The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall
Was not more level than the sea,
As, full of loving fantasy,
And with low murmurs, we rode on,
Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
That in immortal silence sleeps
Dreaming of her own melting hues,
Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
But now a wandering land breeze came
And a far sound of feathery quires;
It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
The horse towards the music raced,
Neighing along the lifeless waste;
Like sooty fingers, many a tree
Rose ever out of the warm sea;
And they were trembling ceaselessly,
As though they all were beating time,
Upon the centre of the sun,
To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
And, now our wandering hours were done,
We cantered to the shore, and knew
The reason of the trembling trees:
Round every branch the song-birds flew,
Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
While round the shore a million stood
Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
And pondered in a soft vain mood
Upon their shadows in the tide,
And told the purple deeps their pride,
And murmured snatches of delight;
And on the shores were many boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
And swans with their exultant throats:
And where the wood and waters meet
We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
They fingered it and gazed on me
And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
But Niamh with a swift distress
Bid them away and hold their peace;
And when they heard her voice they ran
And knelt there, every girl and man,
And kissed, as they would never cease,
Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
She bade them bring us to the hall
Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
A Druid dream of the end of days
When the stars are to wane and the world be done.

They led us by long and shadowy ways
Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
And tangled creepers every hour
Blossom in some new crimson flower,
And once a sudden laughter sprang
From all their lips, and once they sang
Together, while the dark woods rang,
And made in all their distant parts,
With boom of bees in honey-marts,
A rumour of delighted hearts.
And once a lady by my side
Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
And touch the laughing silver string;
But when I sang of human joy
A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
And, patrick! by your beard, they wept,
Until one came, a tearful boy;
'A sadder creature never stept
Than this strange human bard,' he cried;
And caught the silver harp away,
And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
It down in a leaf-hid, hollow place
That kept dim waters from the sky;
And each one said, with a long, long sigh,
'O saddest harp in all the world,
Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!'

And now, still sad, we came to where
A beautiful young man dreamed within
A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
One hand upheld his beardless chin,
And one a sceptre flashing out
Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
Like to a merry wandering rout
Of dancers leaping in the air;
And men and ladies knelt them there
And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
And with low murmurs prayed to him,
And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
And touched it with their finger-tips.
He held that flashing sceptre up.
'Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
And fills with stars night's purple cup,
And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
And stirs the young kid's budding horn,
And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
And for the peewit paints his cap,
And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
And makes the little planets run:
And if joy were not on the earth,
There were an end of change and birth,
And Earth and Heaven and Hell would die,
And in some gloomy barrow lie
Folded like a frozen fly;
Then mock at Death and Time with glances
And wavering arms and wandering dances.

'Men's hearts of old were drops of flame
That from the saffron morning came,
Or drops of silver joy that fell
Out of the moon's pale twisted shell;
But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
And toss and turn in narrow caves;
But here there is nor law nor rule,
Nor have hands held a weary tool;
And here there is nor Change nor Death,
But only kind and merry breath,
For joy is God and God is joy.'
With one long glance for girl and boy
And the pale blossom of the moon,
He fell into a Druid swoon.

And in a wild and sudden dance
We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance
And swept out of the wattled hall
And came to where the dewdrops fall
Among the foamdrops of the sea,
And there we hushed the revelry;
And, gathering on our brows a frown,
Bent all our swaying bodies down,
And to the waves that glimmer by
That sloping green De Danaan sod
Sang, 'God is joy and joy is God,
And things that have grown sad are wicked,
And things that fear the dawn of the morrow
Or the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

We danced to where in the winding thicket
The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom.
And bending over them softly said,
Bending over them in the dance,
With a swift and friendly glance
From dewy eyes:  'Upon the dead
Fall the leaves of other roses,
On the dead dim earth encloses:
But never, never on our graves,
Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
And all listless hours fear us,
And we fear no dawning morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

The dance wound through the windless woods;
The ever-summered solitudes;
Until the tossing arms grew still
Upon the woody central hill;
And, gathered in a panting band,
We flung on high each waving hand,
And sang unto the starry broods.
In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
Of milky brightness to and fro
As thus our song arose:  'You stars,
Across your wandering ruby cars
Shake the loose reins:  you slaves of God.
He rules you with an iron rod,
He holds you with an iron bond,
Each one woven to the other,
Each one woven to his brother
Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
But we in a lonely land abide
Unchainable as the dim tide,
With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
And hands that hold no wearisome tool,
Folded in love that fears no morrow,
Nor the grey wandering osprey Sorrow.'

O Patrick! for a hundred years
I chased upon that woody shore
The deer, the badger, and the boar.
O patrick! for a hundred years
At evening on the glimmering sands,
Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
These now outworn and withered hands
Wrestled among the island bands.
O patrick! for a hundred years
We went a-fishing in long boats
With bending sterns and bending bows,
And carven figures on their prows
Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
O patrick! for a hundred years
The gentle Niamh was my wife;
But now two things devour my life;
The things that most of all I hate:
Fasting and prayers.

S.  Patrick.      Tell on.

Oisin.                 Yes, yes,
For these were ancient Oisin's fate
Loosed long ago from Heaven's gate,
For his last days to lie in wait.
When one day by the tide I stood,
I found in that forgetfulness
Of dreamy foam a staff of wood
From some dead warrior's broken lance:
I tutned it in my hands; the stains
Of war were on it, and I wept,
Remembering how the Fenians stept
Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
Equal to good or grievous chance:
Thereon young Niamh softly came
And caught my hands, but spake no word
Save only many times my name,
In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
And found the horse and bridled him,
For we knew well the old was over.
I heard one say, 'His eyes grow dim
With all the ancient sorrow of men';
And wrapped in dreams rode out again
With hoofs of the pale findrinny
Over the glimmering purple sea.
Under the golden evening light,
The Immortals moved among thc fountains
By rivers and the woods' old night;
Some danced like shadows on the mountains
Some wandered ever hand in hand;
Or sat in dreams on the pale strand,
Each forehead like an obscure star
Bent down above each hooked knee,
And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
Was slumbering half in the sea-ways;
And, as they sang, the painted birds
Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
Like drops of honey came their words,
But fainter than a young lamb's bleat.

'An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother.
He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
He hears the storm in the chimney above,
And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.

But We are apart in the grassy places,
Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
Or love's first tenderness die in our gaze.
The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
She limps along in an aged whiteness;
A storm of birds in the Asian trees
Like tulips in the air a-winging,
And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
That raise their heads and wander singing,
Must murmur at last, "Unjust, unjust";
And "My speed is a weariness," falters the mouse,
And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
When God shall come from the Sea with a sigh
And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
And the moon like a pale rose wither away.'
Fountain, that springest on this grassy *****,
Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly,
With the cool sound of breezes in the beach,
Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear
No stain of thy dark birthplace; gushing up
From the red mould and slimy roots of earth,
Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air,
In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew
That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth God
Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright.

  This tangled thicket on the bank above
Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green!
For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine
That trails all over it, and to the twigs
Ties fast her clusters. There the spice-bush lifts
Her leafy lances; the viburnum there,
Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up
Her circlet of green berries. In and out
The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown,
Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest.

  Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe
Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks
Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee held
A mighty canopy. When April winds
Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush
Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up,
Opened, in airs of June, her multitude
Of golden chalices to humming-birds
And silken-winged insects of the sky.

  Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in Spring.
The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms
Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf,
Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower
Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem
The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, left
Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould,
And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear,
In such a sultry summer noon as this,
Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped across.

  But thou hast histories that stir the heart
With deeper feeling; while I look on thee
They rise before me. I behold the scene
Hoary again with forests; I behold
The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen
Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods,
Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet,
And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce cry
That rends the utter silence; 'tis the whoop
Of battle, and a throng of savage men
With naked arms and faces stained like blood,
Fill the green wilderness; the long bare arms
Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream;
Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree
Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short,
As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors
And conquered vanish, and the dead remain
Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods
Are still again, the frighted bird comes back
And plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters run
Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down,
Amid the deepening twilight I descry
Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard,
And bear away the dead. The next day's shower
Shall wash the tokens of the fight away.

  I look again--a hunter's lodge is built,
With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well,
While the meek autumn stains the woods with gold,
And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door
The red man slowly drags the enormous bear
Slain in the chestnut thicket, or flings down
The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells
Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls,
And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh,
That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves,
The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruit
That falls from the gray butternut's long boughs.

  So centuries passed by, and still the woods
Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the year
Grew chill, and glistened in the frozen rains
Of winter, till the white man swung the axe
Beside thee--signal of a mighty change.
Then all around was heard the crash of trees,
Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground,
The low of ox, and shouts of men who fired
The brushwood, or who tore the earth with ploughs.
The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in green
The blackened hill-side; ranks of spiky maize
Rose like a host embattled; the buckwheat
Whitened broad acres, sweetening with its flowers
The August wind. White cottages were seen
With rose-trees at the windows; barns from which
Came loud and shrill the crowing of the ****;
Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly horse,
And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich turf
Of grasses brought from far o'ercrept thy bank,
Spotted with the white clover. Blue-eyed girls
Brought pails, and dipped them in thy crystal pool;
And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen-haired,
Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge.

  Since then, what steps have trod thy border! Here
On thy green bank, the woodmann of the swamp
Has laid his axe, the reaper of the hill
His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream.
The sportsman, tired with wandering in the still
September noon, has bathed his heated brow
In thy cool current. Shouting boys, let loose
For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped
Into a cup the folded linden leaf,
And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars
Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side
Has sat, and mused how pleasant 'twere to dwell
In such a spot, and be as free as thou,
And move for no man's bidding more. At eve,
When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky,
Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thought
Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully
And brightly as thy waters. Here the sage,
Gazing into thy self-replenished depth,
Has seen eternal order circumscribe
And bind the motions of eternal change,
And from the gushing of thy simple fount
Has reasoned to the mighty universe.

  Is there no other change for thee, that lurks
Among the future ages? Will not man
Seek out strange arts to wither and deform
The pleasant landscape which thou makest green?
Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream
Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more
For ever, that the water-plants along
Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain
Alight to drink? Haply shall these green hills
Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf
Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost
Amidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise,
Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks,
Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou
Gush midway from the bare and barren steep?
It was the schooner Hesperus
  That sailed the wintry sea:
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
  To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
  Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her ***** white as the hawthorn buds
  The ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
  His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
  The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
  Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
  For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
  And tonight no moon we see!”
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
  And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
  A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
  And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain,
  The vessel in its strength:
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
  Then leaped her cable’s length.

“Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
  And do not tremble so:
For I can weather the roughest gale,
  That ever wind did blow.”

He wrapped her warm in his ******’s coat
  Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
  And bound her to the mast.

“O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”—
  And he steered for the open sea.

“O father! I hear the sound of guns,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Some ship in distress, that cannot live
  In such an angry sea!”

“O father! I see a gleaming light,
  O say, what may it be?”
But the father answered never a word,
  A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
  With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
  On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
  That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
  On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear
  Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
  Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
  A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
  On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
  She drifted a weary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
  Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
  Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
  Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
  With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
  **! **! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
  A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair
  Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozed on her breast,
  The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-****,
  On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
  In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
  On the reef of Norman’s Woe!
“Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
    Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
    Why dost thou haunt me?”

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
    Gleam in December;
And, like the water’s flow
Under December’s snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
    From the heart’s chamber.

“I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
    No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man’s curse;
    For this I sought thee.

“Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic’s strand,
I, with my childish hand,
    Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
    Trembled to walk on.

“Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
    Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf’s bark,
Until the soaring lark
    Sang from the meadow.

“But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair’s crew,
O’er the dark sea I flew
    With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
    By our stern orders.

“Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long Winter out;
Often our midnight shout
    Set the ***** crowing,
As we the Berserk’s tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
    Filled to o’erflowing.

“Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
    Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
    Fell their soft splendor.

“I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest’s shade
    Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
    By the hawk frighted.

“Bright in her father’s hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
    Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter’s hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
    To hear my story.

“While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
    The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
    Blew the foam lightly.

“She was a Prince’s child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
    I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew’s flight,
Why did they leave that night
    Her nest unguarded?

“Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
    Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armed hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
    With twenty horsemen.

“Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
    When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
    Laugh as he hailed us.

“And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
‘Death!’ was the helmsman’s hail,
    ‘Death without quarter!’
Mid-ships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
    Through the black water!

“As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
    With his prey laden,—
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
    Bore I the maiden.

“Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o’er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
    Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady’s bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
  Stands looking seaward.

“There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden’s tears;
She had forgot her fears,
    She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne’er shall the sun arise
    On such another!

“Still grew my ***** then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
    The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
    Oh, death was grateful!

“Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
    My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior’s soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!”
    Thus the tale ended.
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes an hears—they let the strongest loose.
The old fox gears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where’er they go;
When badgers fight, then everyone’s a foe.
The dogs are clapped and urged to join the fray’
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels

The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, and awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and crackles, groans, and dies.
O Sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weight my eyelids down
And steep my senses on forgetfulness?...
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?...
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose?
Sydney Victoria Dec 2012
It Was A Warm Spring Day,
In Our Downtown Home,
White Paint Was Lethargically Pealing,
Off The Siding Which Lay Beneath Curling Vines,
I Still Remember Your Smile Daddy,
Your Coal Colored Hair Lingering In The Breeze,
As You Asked Me, "Do You Wanna See?"
I Nodded Not Quite Sure What I Was Going To See,
You Gently Lifted Me Up,
Put Me On Your Shoulders Like You Always Did,
And Let Me Peer Inside A Forest Of Vines,
And What I Saw Both Frighted And Enchanted Me,
Something Completely New,
A Little House Wren Who Cradled Her Eggs,
And Looked At Me,
Her Heart Beating Quickly,
"She's Protecting Her Babies," You Whispered,
"Just Like I'll Always Protect You"
"Hi," I Said And Held Out My Hand,
The Little Wren Flew Away And I Sobbed,
"Why Was It Scared Of Me Daddy?"
"It Was Only Letting You See It's Eggs"
Dad, I Dont Know If You Remember This, But I Do:)
Cripp Jul 2013
I am on your chest of fighting pearls
Like a rack of phobias hovering over you
I push my eight legs hard between your ribs
As not only your pupils dilate

Your ribcage is wide open for me
To feast merciless on your frighted heart
I watch you with my thousand hooded eyes
As you arch your back with eyes closed

You hate so many things
Like morning breath and crumbs
But I will push this acrid vapour into you
As I press your back deep through the floor

I will take you there, come with me
Where you cannot go, by yourself
Don’t kneel before me, get the **** up and face
As we both push on to unpaced frontiers...
st64 Mar 2013
Just woke up now
My eyes still puffy
Can't believe this lovely dream
I had of being with you.

I dreamt I took a plane to you
And stole into your house
Crept around in search of you
But heard voices, hid beneath a bed!

Then some granny came into that room
Shuffling in and mumbling low
She lay down on that bed and tried
To wrestle comfort from sagging mattress.

Her nagging complaints drew them all
While I froze in fear, yet so alive
I shut my eyes and waited bated breath
While they tended to the dame.

Then you leaned down and saw me there
I turned, you looked right into frighted deer eyes
You ensconced the granny to another room
All left the room, turned out the lights.

Then fifty minutes later, when all asleep
I felt you pulling out me
All stiff by now, we rubbed a bit abed
And settled into shy embrace.

You kissed my eyes by sullen moon
Raking crescent fingernails over me
Barely hold the delight; no more
Dazzling slivers of light dance in your eyes.

But with time not on our side
We subtly reach that exquisite point
Where I hover twixt your crux
I wait and wait, then gently ****** ....

I yearn for you to move with me, oh!
And when you do, you writhe and twist
Then delicious thrills outwit in surprising bend
As you . . .

(.......)


(Daddy, daddy, please I want some ice-cream!)




Ohhhhh, crap!
This sure is one bedazzled catnap I did not want hijacked.




Star Toucher, 09 March 2013
Based on an actual dream, which is true
Except for the parts which are not! :)
Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,
  I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,
  These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.

This stream of odours flowing by
  From clover-field and clumps of pine,
This music, thrilling all the sky,
  From all the morning birds, are thine.

Thou fill'st with joy this little one,
  That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run
  Through the dark woods like frighted deer.

Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
  Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes
  Their daily gladness, pass from me--

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground
  These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and sound
  Seem fading into night again?

The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all
  Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,
Upward and outward, and they fall
  Back to earth's ***** when they die.

All that have borne the touch of death,
  All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
  That living zone 'twixt earth and air.

There lies my chamber dark and still,
  The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill
  In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.

Well, I have had my turn, have been
  Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen
  The brightness of the skirts of God;

And knew the light within my breast,
  Though wavering oftentimes and dim,
The power, the will, that never rest,
  And cannot die, were all from him.

Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve
  To see me taken from thy love,
Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve,
  And weep, and scatter flowers above.

Thy little heart will soon be healed,
  And being shall be bliss, till thou
To younger forms of life must yield
  The place thou fill'st with beauty now.

When we descend to dust again,
  Where will the final dwelling be
Of Thought and all its memories then,
  My love for thee, and thine for me?
Primrose Clare Dec 2013
roam the fingers, thin and light.
beguile by the brooks, chilly and frighted.
rust in trunks, ****** bells in hums,
greens they run, yellows the sun.

down the ripples, silent and long;
appear books, of language and song.

in the books, shall be love-
veiled beyond views
from branches I once sew;
the stains in the berries, the one in teas,
redden every morning, on laced napkins;
the love of ballet songs; in waves of faerie wands;
The cloaked mist, in time, of the faces I still want.
Brent Kincaid Apr 2017
I’m gliding, not fighting
As I enter later years.
I’m skating, not debating
As I face my aging fears.
I see what I was afraid of
Were just phantasms only.
They leave too many scared
With talk of being lonely.

Go away with bearboo talk.
Nobody is frighted here.
It’s just another day for me
It’s nothing but another year!
Age is not the bogeyman
It comes along with the ride.
It’s part of what made my life
It’s proof that I have tried.

**** and chest swapped places
My hair is wandering south.
All that goes very swiftly
Is my energy and my mouth.
Everything is changing now
I am not a kid any more.
I spend time in pharmacy aisles
More than the rest of the store.

But none of this unexpected.
I watched others go through it.
It’s not like it was ever a secret.
No mystery. I totally knew it.
So I plan to celebrate this stage
Which means I must slow down
And take things as they come
No reason to whine, cry or frown.
Sub Rosa Nov 2013
Adorned in flowers, you will look to the sky.
Garnished with clovers, your body will sigh.
A breath to the aspens lining your road,
shading your skin in the sun of the grove.
Come down silver hands from the aerial realm
and you recall the words of the old St. Anselm.
For he argued that 'Being is greater than not being'
And you are no longer frighted by the hell
you are seeing.
Raven Apr 2015
There in a corner is a messed up kid
But no one knows
They never speak or rise their hand
You will never hear a word
They keep to the shadows
So no one sees them
However
They see you
They hear you
They notice everything
But they will never step forward
As they are frighted of what
Might happen if they step
In others way
Shadow Dragon Dec 2018
You ask me how
I will do it.
I never told you
but I will slit my throat
in front of the person
that anger me the most.
I wanna see blood, red
and frighted eyes.
Scared for life.
Julian Apr 2023
4/14/2023
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l8njruxa73yee9b0jzmhd/The-Ultimate-Unabridged-Guide-to-Esoteric-Working-English-2.docx?­rlkey=kunoar7ghpfkb7fjk5xkdgx95&st=i84ornny&dl=0

JERBOA NEKTON SYNAPHEA BRIMBORIONS SCOWLING AT FRIGHTED PARASELENES OF THE DARKEST DIMMEST SATURNINE JANSKY OF JANITRICES ENDOWED WITH THE NOMOGENY OF FUTURE NOMENCLATORS THAT SWERVE WITH NOTAPHILY BECAUSE OF  NOTITIA ATTEMPT THEIR GALLANT  NICCOLIC GAMBOLS AND SPRAUNCY SPECULAR RETROMORPHOSIS OF PHUGOID VISAGISTS URANOPLASTY ELECTS TO THE OBSOLAGNIUM OF DIESTRUS AMONG HEAVENLY AUDIENCES ENRICHING THE HEGUMENES OF EARTH WITH THE WIDDERSHANCY AGAINST WIDGEONS BECAUSE THE WAPENSHAW SCAMMONY OF STEPNEYS OF STEMSON REGARD THE ZALKENGUR OF GAINSAY IN RENGALL COMEUPPANCE ARE MASTERATE MATACHINS DANCING WITH TERPSICHOREAN CACOETHES BECAUSE OF CALUMETS OF CORTEGE BLANDISHMENTS EXCEL AT TRANSFORMATIVE REVALORIZATION RATHER THAN REGELATION BY CLEPSYDRA HONORS CERACEOUS TROPISMS IN THE VINSKY OF SHIBBOLETH THAT A KAPSTONE PAPER SOCIETY GRIDLOCKED BY THROTTLEBOTTOMS OF MELOPEPON MENSURATION IN RIVETED AUDISM FOR THE COMPLEX TRUTINATION OF THE CERBERIC WILL OF DEMASSIFICATION IN THE CNICNODES OF CTETOLOGY THAT EMPOWER NASONS WITH NASUTE INDOLENCE IMPUDENT ONLY UPON TAMBURITZAS OF TANGORECEPTORS AMONG THE FLOCKS OF MEN BECAUSE THEY FEAR THE NORSELS OF NEMBUTSU THAT ANOINTED ESBATS WITH A PEDIGREE OF CHICANERY AROUND THE MORSES OF VARSAL HEGEMONY OF WHELKY BEATEN BY WALLETEERS SPARING IN TIMES OF FAMINE THE STRAIN IN TIMES OF DESICCATED THIRST IN THE GEOSCOPY OF THE DELIVERANCE OF PYCNOSTYLE PYRETOLOGY TO BECOME FREESTANDING CETACEAN CAMBERS THAT AVOID THE CAIMANS LIKE THEIR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT TO ESTABLISH A VESTIGIAL VENTANA UPON THE VARDLES OF ALL FINESSE IN “CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT”MIKE BOSSY BOSE THAT SPURTLED OFTEN IN THE FAMIGERATION OF WRIKPOND RINKOMANIA SUCH THAT RUBEFACTION IN TRITANOPIA OR MULIEBRITY IN PROTANOPIA MIGHT STORGE THE SALMAGUNDI OF THE BORTS OF THE SARSENET SOCIETY OF COMPOSURE REGALING COMFORTS THAT “THE CREATURE WALKS”PRANCES WITH A DILATORY CALCULUS IN BALEFIRE SUCH THAT THE BOWDLERIZATION OF POTAMOLOGY FOR SQUARSON REGARD IN ABRAXAS SYNERGY FORESEEN BY VENTRAD CHIRKS OF ANTI-HEROS BECOMING VENDETTA VIGILANTES OF THE BRONTEUM OF PLUTOMANIA SUCH THAT NEGOTIOSITY BECOMES A TRIFLE OF THE CLORENCE OF CEPHALIGATION NEWLY INVENTED INTO STREAMLINED TIMMYNOGGIES THE WASTRELS AND WASE OF BARNSTORM THAT UPON THE SERENADE OF LINCOLNS LAST STROLLS OF PURPRESTURE IN THE INCONVENIENCE OF PRE-GALVANIZATION FOR THE DURAMEN TO TRICOTEE WASSAILING THE FORTUNES OF WELDS OF WELLAWAY WANGS AND KENSPECKEL SATURATION OF FLUMINOUS FOGRAM FILEMOTS IN CASEFIED CORDWAINERS THAT AFFIX THEIR STEPWISE CLIMB INTO IMPARLANCE IMPAVID BECAUSE OF THE KLENDUSIC SURVIVAL OF THE VEES AND MOULIN ROUGE GLACIOLOGY OF ARCTICIANS SURMOUNT A SPECULATIVE SPATTEE THAT IS LOUDLY WAILING AND BEMOANING THE ANTIPODES OBLATED IN THEIR OWN NACREOUS NAGORS OF NEMBUTSU CAVERNOUS IN THEIR CHUCKWALLA ACCLAIM OF THIGMOTAXIS FOR MIGNONS OF CHIRAPSIA SPARRING AGAINST THE UPSTART PRESBYTERY CUT AWAY AND RESECTIONED ENDLESSLY IN THE MARAUD OF BENIGHTED KNIGHTS SURVEYING THE EMPTY EXPANSE OF QUIDCUNX OF COLORATION SOLVING THE EQUIPOISE OF STOCKINETTE SUCH THAT  RADICALISM BY BLESBOKS IS STERNLY REPRIMANDED BY THE STERNWAY OF EQUESTRIAN SYNCOPATION UPON BEBLUBBERED ATRABILIARY ABAXIAL CONUNDRUMS THE SALVATION OF THE FEW AND THE FAMISH OF THE POISON IVY SOCIETIES OF COGNOSCENTI RHIZOGENIC TO ALL SURDS AND SURDOMUTE SURQUEDRIES SUCH THAT BLAZING CONFLAGRATION OF BONHOMIE BONFIRES ALWAYS ENTITLES THE WHIFFETS AND WHIPSTAFF OF THE WAPENTAKE OF THE REJOINDER GENERATION TO EXALT AND EXCEL DESPITE PRIMORDIAL IGNOMINIES ESTABLISHED BY EMOTIVISM BECAUSE THE EISOPTROMANIA OF ONE IS THE PANOPTICON TO MANY A SECRET TROVE AND MORE VIKING MARAUDERS OF THE DISTANT APOSTIL TO APOSTLESHIP DEFINING THE SOTERIOLOGY OF MAGNANIMITY BARMCLOTHS OF BARMASTERS IN THE OLD BRIQUET ARRANGEMENT OF HOLOCRYPTIC HOLTS BECOMES STRIGINE ONLY IN LAMBENT ALPENGLOW TWILLS OF BOREALIS TEMPER AND THE PHLEGMATIC HUMOR OF THE TEDIUM OF THE PRETECHNOLOGICAL ARGALI OF MASTERWORKS BY MOUNTENANCE ALONE SCURFY IN THE HALLSWALLOP OF “PRINCE OF JERUSALEM”CELLARERS IN THE MAMMOCK OF DEPREDATION SWERVING FROM INCOHERENCE IN DRIVEL TO THE LIVELIHOOD OF THE SAINTS UPON THEIR MORTAL METENSOMATOSIS BECAUSE OF MALABATHRUM ATTEMPTS TO BECOME INVICTIVE IN FUTURE SCENARIO FOR WILDING ALBENTURE THAT DISCOVERS ALL WOOLFELL MALAPERT QUANDARIES OF JAWHOLE AND JATO SUCH THAT STREAMLINED MILITARIES IMBREVIATED CENOTES OF CENTROBARIC COBALTIFEROUS COMBUVIROUS CHERNOZEMS OF THE ARTICULATE FRINGES OF THE EXTRAMUNDANE SHALLOPED UPON THE EARTH AND JOGGLING WITH EACH SEISMIC SVEDBERG ROLLICKING THE ROIL OF ROORBACKS OF ROARING 20S VERDURE MIGHT THE SCAPPLE OF SOVENANCE AND THE VEILLEUSES THAT DEPEND ON WHEATENS OF MUGIENCE BASED ON SQUAMATION AND WAINAGE FROM WANIGANS THAT THE NEXILITY OF FUTURE GROMATIC PRECISION ALIGNS THE SYZYGY OF GALLANT GAMESMANSHIP FOR PLACKIQUES OF THE PLECKIGGER TO ASSUME A SUBERIC VALUE IN THE VAULT OF NOSTALGIA THAT ENTOMBS TO MANY AUDISMS OF IAMATOLOGY FOR IATRALIPTIC ASCERTAINED CERTAINTIES OF SOCKDOLAGER TO SUBSUME A TYRANNY OF CUCULINE AND CUNICULOUS SWARF SPAWNED UPON THE ARENEIDAN ARENOIDS THAT SURVIVE AMONG THE LAST REGNANT HUMANISM RECENSED ON BRACHYDACTYLOUS REVANCHE TO THE ELLIPSOIDS OF TURBINATED BUT TUBIFACIENT PIRACY OF CONTEMPORARY REVELATIONS UPON THE ENGROSSED BOX OFFICE SOCIETIES THAT SCAFFOLD TO THE PINNACLE THE ABRAXAS OF ALBATROSS TRUSTS OF JALOUSIES OF CAMBERS BELONGING TO THE HIGHER ORDERS OF HISTORICAL REFINEMENT BECAUSE OF THEIR FLAIRS IGNOVIMOUS UPON THE PAST IN MASTERY OF BUSHWHACKER FUTURISM THAT BEAMS WITH BARNSTORM AND STEAM ENGINES THE WAY FOR CALVERS EVEN WHEN CALVOUS TO MOUNT EMOLUMENT AND PILOT AGAINST PILATES OF OUR MODERN AGE IN THEIR LASSITUDE AND LACHRYMOSE LAODICEAN AGATHISMS SUCH THAT ENDANGERED GLEBES ORBITING THE HYPAETHRAL GLANCE AND LEER OF LEARY TRAMONTANE WHERRETS OF RASPY TEARS BEMOANING THE SQUINTIFEGOS THAT BELEAGUER THEMSELVES ON “BLUEPRINTS OF THE BLACK MARKET” “24K MAGIC”SOCIETIES THAT SIMPER AMONG THE REST AS SUPREME PROMACHOS ENTILTING THE FUTURE TO WOBBLE IN SYNCOPATION WITH HETEROCHRONY ITSELF SUCH AS AITCHBONES AND THE CORDWAINER ADVOWSONS WHO UNDERSTAND THE THERMODYNAMICS OF RACIAL STRIFE MUST HEAL OUR DIVISIONS TO RECLAIM THE LAND OF DEPREDATED JAMDANIS SUCH THAT YELEKS OF YARAKS BECOME THE HABITUES OF EVERY CAVERNILOQUY OWNED BY EVERY STANJANT MUSEUM OF ATHENAEUM IN SUPEREROGATORY FRUITION. SEMAPHORES OF ACCOLENT ABATJOUR ANOINT THE MASONS OF OUR TIME THROUGH SUBLIME CURRENCY SUGGESTIONS THAT REIFY THE HYPOSTASIS AGAINST HYPOCRISY BECAUSE TOO MANY WIDGEONS ARE DELUDED BY THE HENOTHEISM OF MISGUIDED BAHUVHRIS OF SECULAR BEDIZENED DENIZENS OF GINNELS AMONG RUDENTURE GIMCRACKS SUCH THAT STARVELING IGNOMINY BECOMES THE STEEPEST CLAMBER IN DILATORY ANFRACTUOUSNESS BLATTERNOPHONES OF BACILISUM SUPINE IN INTERREGNUM THE OBROGATION OF THE VESTIGIAL PROMONTORY OF MARTINGALE BECAUSE OF PROFOUND JASPERATED DESPERATION AMONG JARVEYING WORLDS ORCHESTRATED BY PRIMIPARAS OF SIMULTAGNOSIA SUCH THAT SCENOGRAPHY OF DYSCHROA OFTEN SUBSUME THE BRUNT OF THE WORK OF CONSCIENTIOUS ATTEMPTS TO REFORM THE COLLEGIAL ESTEEM OF GRADGRIND STATOLITHS THAT AFFLICT THE FEWER LIMACINE CATAPLEXIES RATHER THAN CEMENTUM BURROWED INTO HYPOGEIODY’S BLINDEST INSTINCTS INFORMED BY HEAPSTEADS OF STAMMERING STANNARIES SUCH THAT THE CEILOMETERS OF CELSITUDE BECOME AN ARTIFACT NOT MERELY OF OUR HUBRIS BUT OUR TOTEMIC CONCERN FOR SUBALTERN MEGALOGRAPHY THAT CAESARAPROPRISM SLELLUMS IN MODERATION OF MODALISM AROUND KINGS AND QUEENS OF THE “NO SLEEP UNTIL BROOKLYN”SECRECY BECAUSE THE WORLD IS ONLY YOURS WHEN THE BORDARS OF BARKENTINE TITRATING AN ATTEMPERED SOCIETAL TRIAGE TO SWAPE WITH MAJORITARIAN HUES A COBBLED CONTRAPLEX SOLUTION TO THE ACCIDIA RATHER THAN EUPRAXIA AMONG THE ARRIVISTES OF VIRILITY CONSOLED AND CAJOLED BY A COMPROMISE OF PATRIARCHY TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL RENEWAL OF MULIEBRITY TO STOP SLEEK MAXIMALISM IN THE LAXISM OF PERVERSE LOVE AND ASKEW COCARDENS THAT BELONG TO THE REALM OF VENTRALABRAL AMNESIA SUCH THAT THEY STOPE AROUND RHEOTAXIS TO STERNWAY THE CABOOSE OF EVERY CUCULINE MALFUNCTION PRICKLY ON TRIBULOID DIETS OF JAUNDICE SUCH THAT EVENTUAL REPARTEE SEGUES WITH ZALKENGUR OF AGRIOZIATRY THAT FORESEES THE POTENTIAL OF ABAXIAL NAZES AND NAVES TO RAMPART THE NYALAS INTO INDEMNITY BECAUSE OF JINGOISM GONE ASTRAY AND A “VIEW ASKEW”PARODY OF SELF-IMPORTANT RIGORS TO DROWN IN A NOYADE NEVER ABAFT ENOUGH TO SURVIVE THE THROTTLED THREMMATOLOGY OF TOFTS BECOMING SUMPTERS OF SUNBITTERN REGALIA WHICH CAMPAIGN A SYBOTIC LABARUM OF ANNEALED SWANK AND REGIMENTED METAPHORS OF BYWORD ARISTOCRACY MANAGED OFTEN WITH  OVERHAILED FORCE BY NEOPHRONS WHO MISCAST EVERY VILLAINY IN AN ATTEMPT TO SQUELCH INTO SILENCE THE CORYPHAEUS OF CIVILIZED REFORMS IN A SOCIETY BUILT ON SPHACELATED BEAUTY AND RAPACIOUS BOODLE. THE ARGALIS OF GALLIVANTED FREEBOOTERS OF STRICT CABOTAGE IN THE VENOCLYSIS TO THEIR TITRATED ADDICTION TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AFFECT ON MAN LIVE INEVITABLY IN THE SCRUTINY OF PALLOR SUCH THAT ESCAPING THIXOTROPY BY MIGNONS OF NOTAPHILY SUSTAINED BY “HOT TUB TIME MACHINE”RIGORS OF ENTHUSIASM NEVER CURBED BY THE CURGLAFF OF NESCIENT IGNAVIA IN PARVANIMITY SUCH THAT THEIR GENIUS JOCKO BOYAUS OF JOLTERHEADS SQUIRMING IN PISCIFAUNA MIGHT THAT SPAR AGAINST SPARTANISM ITSELF—A PARCHMENT OF THE MOST DELIBERATE WIDGEON SUBVERSION OF PROTANOPIA BECAUSE OF AN INVETERATE TRUST IN BRAINTRUST ALLEGORIES CAVORTING WITH BLUSHING INFAMIES SUCH THAT IMPUDENT GAIN BLAINS THE BLUNGE OF OPERATIVE FULGURANT RATOMORPHISM BECOMING A COSTERMONGER SALVATION OF A TERMINAL TERMINUS BUSBOATING A BUMICKY BADIGEON OF MAGICAL TAGHAIRM THAT ANOINTS DEGREES OF PRESTIGE FOR AN AUTOBAHN STREAMLINE RATHER THAN A MUDDIED ROAD OF ROARING 20S FINIFUGAL CALCIFUGE CALCARIFEROUS CARNALITY INDOLENT UPON RICHES AND INCUMBENT UPON COCARDEN SUCH THAT THE SLAYING TITANS HYDRAHEADED IN FORESIGHT OF THE MACHIAVELLIAN PLOTS BY NECROTYPES AGAINST NECROLOGUES BUT OK WITH THE LYCEUM OF MORTIFEROUS MORTMAINS TO BROOK STREAMLINED REPUGNANCE MIGHT EVENTUALLY ALABASTER IVORY TOWER VERDURE OF THE BOSCHVELDT CHARGE THE PROPER CHIMINAGE FOR CHIMNEYS OF THE WHIMPER OF THE MASCARON IN THE FETED “ARMY OF ME”DENTICLES AND FORSOOTH THE GAINSAY OF TITANISM OF DWIZZENED BRUTALITY MIGHT SUCCOR THEIR WAY TOWARDS SUSSULTATORY FORESIGHT FLICKERING IN ALPENGLOW VORAGINOUS VISAGISTS OF VRAISEMBLANCE IN THE VUGS OF SAXIFRAGOUS CONTUMELY AND CONTUMACY MET WITH THE DIRIGISME OF LACKADAY RIMOSE STEPNEYS ON THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN RATHER THAN THE HIGHWAY TO HELL. WE RAPIDLY PERUSE EVERY TRIBUNE OF BERLINE COMPLICITY IN THE MACARISM OF MACROBIAN LONGEVITY OF PROSPEROUS STREAKS OF BUOYANT TRICOTEES THAT WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THE SCORIAS OF IMAGINATIVE GLANCES AT FUTURE VIEWERSHIP OF TRICHOSIS IN DURATIVE FORMATION PROMINENT AMONG  DURAMEN STRICKLES THAT SWERVE FROM SWARTH AND RENEW THE PLEDGE TO REMAIN “PEOPLE OF THE BOOK”LASSOING “RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC”CARRACKS TO THE ENTHUSIASTIC PASTORAULING PURPRESTURE OF INSOUCIANCE THAT GALLOPS FROM PRECIPICE TO APOGEE AND BACK AGAIN IN RETROGRADE LIMELIGHT BLARING BLATTERNOPHONES OF THE “PANOPTICON OF THE MASTER CLOCK”BECAUSE NEMBUTSU BOWS BEFORE GOD AND MAN THAT IS SLIPSHOD IN ITS DIRIGISME IN BERGAMASK CULVERTAGE OF ICEBLINKS OF VERGLAS THAT MEMORIALIZE THE PLIGHT OF THE PRESENT AND THE REMORSE OF THE PAST TO THE INEVITABILITY OF FLASHBANG FUTURISM SUCH THAT SAXHORNS COULD NEVER MORE STRONGLY EXHORT A UNIFIED DEMARCHE RATHER THAN A TILTED TWILL OF TWADDLED HOLOCRYPTIC METEMPIRICAL PLEONASMS THAT REITERATE THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY ALL TO THE GLORY OF THE SAINTS AND ANGELS OF THE HEGUMENE AND THE ROODS THAT RUDELY INTERRUPTED OUR STARLIT DAYDREAM BELIEVING MAZUT AND THE SADDER MAZOPATHIA OF RECKLINGS OF TURTLEBACK SLOWLY BURNING AWAY THEIR FLAMBEAUS OF DELUSION INTO THE PARALYSIS OF GINGLYMUS AMONG THE SYNAPHEA STELLIONS THAT ARE STANDPIPES TOWARDS ALL HUMAN LIBERATION BECAUSE OF NACREOUS CABRILLA SUCH THAT NEVER TOLD BARCAROLES OF THE CAUDLE OF COSSETED CATHEDRA THAT CATHEAD CLOTURE SEEKS TO FINALLY ABRIDGE THE SUFFRAGE OF SUFFERING CONSPUED MINORITIES IN THEIR PLEDGE OF PATRIOTIC ENRICHMENT OF A TRICKLE DOWN SYSTEM OF FATIDICAL FASHIONS NOW IN THE HEYDAY OF  THEIR TRANSPARENCY TO ANOINT THE MESCULONIES THAT WERE STALWART THICKETS OF PRISTINE ASYLUM AND SILENTIUM SUCH THAT THE FEWER WERE INFORMED OF THE GREATER TRAVESTY OF HISTORICAL DEFECTS TOO SUPERNAL AND SUPERLATIVE TO EVER EVADE BY TIME’S HONEST DESIGN. THE STRATEGY OF THROTTLEBOTTOMED WAPENTAKE IN ILKENGOR WITH ILLAQUEATION THAT CANNULAR HEISTS OF CANQUE THAT NOTARIZE THE NOTAPHILY OF NOTITIA IN NICCOLIC DEMUR SUCH THAT NIDAMENTAL CARDIOGNOST BARRULETS OF SIRENS OF BRASH QUISQUILOUS LANDFILLS OF TOXIC NUCLEARITY AGAINST NUCLEOTIDES OF NEPIONIC OIKONISUS BECAUSE IN INCONVENIENT THRESHES OF IMMERGENCE WE SLAKE ONLY THE APPETITES OF INSATIABLE MEN BROWBEATING THEIR JOGGLED SVEDBERGS MIGHT THEY ENCOUNTER THE DUTIFUL AGGIORNAMENTO NOT OF RICHES OF MATERIAL EMOLUMENT BY THE CONTRITE AND PENITENT HEART OF ACCOLENT NOTORIETY BECOMING LIP BALM FOR FAMISHED FAME SPARKLING WITH FIREWORKS WIDELY HARROWING AND TRIED BY THE CRUCIBLES OF TAGHAIRM GOETICS FOR THE BAEDEKERS OF THE TIMEPIECES. GODS GREATEST SWITH IN MAGNANIMITY FOR PRICKLY BLACKGUARD BLEMISHED BY TOADY PEOPLE WHO WORSHIP STARFISH URCHINS OF TEN FOOT PARKAS AND SOUTH PARK LITURGIES MIGHT EVENTUALLY THEIR SQUARSON CONSCIENCE OWING ALL TO SALVATION NOT OF RICHES BUT OF CARDIOGNOST MAINSAIL SUBINTELLIGENTUR REVELATIONS THAT SQUAWK ON EVERY CROWDED BARRISTER OF THE STREETS SUCH THAT THE FANFARONADE BECOMES THE ANSWER TO ALL UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF SYNCLASTIC BORDARS OF SINECURE PAYING FEALTY TO PASTIMES BECOMING GHAWAZIS AND RIGORS BECOMING FLUENT IN THE EASY DREARY DAYS OF ZEITGEIST OF GELOGENIC CACKLING CREVASSES ON AN EVEREST PATHWAY OF PROMISELAND TITANS AND EMERGING IMPERIAL REGARDS BECAUSE THE “TEACHERS”SOCIETY THAT “OVERTHROWS ALL THE PIRATES”FROM “FALLING POISON IVY”BECOMES THE TALISMAN TO REJUVENATE THE CORTEGES OF BELIEF IN THE MOST SUPREME GOD RATHER THAN THE MOST ESTEEMED MAMMON BECAUSE WE DENOUNCE WIDGEONS AND WE ELEVATE THE CAUSES OF GAMMERSTANGS EVERYWHERE THAT ARE CONTECKED WITH STRIDULATION OF STADIOMETERS BECAUSE THE WANIGANS OF WANGS OF SHANTUNG OF WONDERWORK PRODIGIES OF BINTURONG FAME SUCH THAT THE IDEOGENY OF HISTORY BELONGS TO CETACEAN KNIGHTS WORKING TOGETHER WITH SPRINGBOKS AGAINST MURENGERS OF SPRINGHARES TO FORM AN ABDERVINE MERIT BUILT ON TRIAGE AND POKERISH CHARADE ALWAYS CONSCIENTIOUS OF NIDOR RATHER THAN NIDIFUGOUS SCRAWLS OF INTEMERATION THAT PANDER ENDLESSLY IN PROVINCIAL WASES OF THE TRACASSERIE OF STERILE PROVIDENCE RATHER THAN AUSTERE VENERATION FOR THE MIRACULOUS SECUNDINE GROWTH OF REVENANT  SPIRITS EVICTED FROM THE LAND OF THE DEAD SUCH THAT THE ANACAMPSEROTES OF LIFE MIGHT ENDOW THEM AGAIN AGAINST PENURY AND POVERTY THE RICHES OF HEAVEN RENOWNED BY URANOPLASTY RATHER THAN SUCCEDANEUM OF SCAMPERING ATTEMPTS BY VARDLES AND VARDO OF PROXENETES WHO TEAM WITH ICICLES FOR ICEBLINKS SUCH THAT SUTLERS THAT MOBILIZE LIBERATION WILL ALWAYS BE DENOUNCED FOR THEIR TEMERITY DESPITE ISOGENS OF VALOR FOR ISOKERAUNIC SQUEAMISH MASCONS BECAUSE GEOCARPY IS A CONSUMERIST SPORT OF HOBNOBBING AT MALLS WHICH SATIATE THEIR EVERY REGARD AND SINK SLOWLY INTO THE ABYSS OF HOLOBENTHIC CONVERSIONS BECAUSE THE TREACLE OF THE SECULAR IS A FLAGRANT MISTAKE. WE MUST ENLIST THE MORAL RIGORS OF LITURGY TO ENHANCE THE AGGIORNAMENTO OF THE HOLIEST OF CHURCHES AND THE MOST BENEFICENT MOSQUES AND THE MOST INVETERATE SYNAGOGUES THAT WE MIGHT OBEY DIVINE PREROGATIVES SYLLABATIM ENUMERATED BY THE ORIGINAL “KING OF KINGS”WHO LEAD A PEACEFUL EFFORT TO PROSELYTIZE THE WORLD TO A WORLD OF NEIGHBORLY WELCOME RATHER THAN AUSTERE NEGLECT AND DERELICT BOWERIES NIVELLATED BEYOND THE REACH OF STANDPIPES BECAUSE GOD IS AN AUTHOR OF WISDOM THAT IS CONSCIENTIOUS OF THE WISEACRES TOLD IN THE TOMES THAT ALWAYS VOUCHSAFE PROMACHOS CORYPHAEUS SUCH THAT DELIMITED DEMARCATIONS OF THE NOVANTIQUE FALL UNDER THE DIVINE CULTIVATION RATHER THAN A RITCHIE RICH OBSESSION ONLY WITH THE VANGUARD ANARCHY OF ALLODIC SUPREMACY IN WHEREAGAINST FICTIONS.WHEN WE LOOK AT GIOVANNI PICO MIRANDOLA’S ORATION OF THE DIGNITY OF MAN WE FIND THE CULPABLE VENDETTA OF VIGILANTES AND THE TEDIUM OF THE PRIMIPARAS THAT WITH BEBLUBBERED AND LACHRYMOSE SATURNINE FEARS OF FETED AGIOTAGE OR DISAGIO IN ALTERNATION AROUND SIMULTAGNOSIA FORMED BY THE HETEROCHRONY OF PRECISE RUMORS REFINED BY THE VIRTUOSITY OF THE WORLDS BEST NEMBUTSU DESIGNED FOR A HEAVENLY KINGDOM OF THE PERDURABLE WE MUST FORSAKE OUR PISMIRISM AND OUR PILPULS OF THE APIKOROS IDOL WORSHIPPERS THAT FOUND ARTWORK TO BE THE EMBODIMENT OF GOD RATHER THAN THE COMMANDMENT AGAINST GRAVEN IMAGES THAT WE MIGHT RETHINK THE PAST AS A CONVENTICLE OF BABLYONIAN IDEALS THAT RESURRECTED ROMAN HEDONISMS AND RECAPITULATED GREEK IMAGINATIONS SUCH THAT NOW WE CAN DEFEAT THE PNYX AND RENEW THE RENAISSANCE CREATED BY PLUTOMANIA IN COMPETITION WITH THE INSUBORDINATION OF COGWHEEL CODSWALLOP OF WHEELHOUSE BELLARMINE MIGHT WE ALWAYS REGARD THIS ZEITGEIST AS THE PROMINENT THICKET AT THE EDGE OF THE PROMENADE THAT MOBILIZES THE CENTURIONS OF ALL MAJOR CENTURIES OF REVERENCE AND OBEISANCE TO BE SEQUESTRATED FROM THE REMAINDER OF TIME SUCH THAT EVENTUALLY THE ACCOLENT WEALTH OF THE ACCOSTED NEVER BECOMES A PRISMATIC PISMIRISM THAT NEGLECTS THE PISCIFAUNA. WE MUST DEVOTE OUR RICHES TO THE TRUE RELIGION OF THE ORPHAN AND THE WIDOW AND WITH RENOWN CELEBRATE ALL OF OUR NEIGHBORS WITH A FRIENDLY CAMARADERIE RATHER THAN A DISTANT UMBRIL OF SACROSANCT CLEPSYDRAS BLEEDING THE PARCHMENT OF ITS INK THAT  THE BAHUVHRI OF NEW WORLD WISDOM MIGHT BE THE CONCLAMATION OF A BEAMING CITY UPON A HILL BUILT TO LAST SO THAT EVENTUALLY THE CRYPTADIA OF GLIB PARLANCE AND PAR FOUR ELEMENTS OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOLASTICATE MIGHT WE REFORM THROUGH STRIDULATION AND PETITION THE GLORY OF ALL THE LORDS THAT GRACED THE PROVENANCE OF EARTH THAT ORBIT AROUND THE HEGUMENES THAT GUARD THE TREASURES OF WOOLFELL AND WOOLPACK OF WOOLDS OF WOONERF SUCH THAT SARANGOUSTY PROFITEERS AT THE EDGES OF REVOLUTE AND FRAYED SCHMEGGEGY MIGHT BE DEFEATED BY THE SONDAGE OF THE SEDERUNT AND AVIZANDUM OF THE REGAL PROPRIETOR BRACKISHLY CONVENING THE TAMARAW OF A COUP RATHER THAN A CODDLED HENPECK MOONLIGHT DRIVE HEAVEN THAT IS SO BLINKERED WITH PRESTIGE IT FORGETS THE CALIPACE OF ITS OWN MORAL ENDURANCE IN THE CHILIARCHY OF WORDBOUND WINDCHEATERS THAT BOOMERANG AROUND CENTRIPETAL CYNOSURE SIGNIFICAT AND ECLAT SUCH THAT THE LIONIZED MUSEUMS OF MOSES NEVER FALL FALLOW WITH TURGID DISREGARD IN AN ERA OF PINACOTHECA BECAUSE WE OWE IT ALL TO THE STEWARDSHIP OF ARCEATED OCREATED WILLOWISH MARTINGALES MIGHT THEY BY GIRDLED BY THE FESTOON OF NEVER A LUKEWARM REGARD FOR ANTEBELLUM SUMPTERS OF DIVINE DESTINY. GOD BELONGS CENTRAL TO OUR CONSIDERATIONS AND HE EXHORTS ALL TOWARDS PUSHFUL AMBITION RESIGNED TO THE FACT THAT PAST ATROCITY IS THE PROGENITOR OF PRESENT FELICITY BUT EVEN IN STREAKY CITIES BENIGHTED BY WROX AND THE WROTH OF RAMPAGING VEILLEUSES AND THEIR RAGGED CULVERTAGE MIGHT WE CALVER OUR WAY INTO GROWTH RATHER THAN SUBSIDE LIKE LIMACINE COWARDS INTO THE BUSHWHACKING BYRE OF BUSHWAS THAT ONLY SURVIVE SCRUTINY IN THE GNOTOBIOLOGY OF DENIAL AND THE GEITONOGAMY OF SACRILEGE BECAUSE OF THE SACRIFICES THE PLAGUES OF FAMINE ARRESTING THE PHAROAHS OF ILLUMINATION IN GINGLYMUS MIGHT THEY ARRAY THEMSELVES VANGUARD IN VENTRAD HOPES TO COUNTERMAND THE EVIL UNDERBELLY AND YEDDA OF JOUGS THAT ENTRAP JORDANS BECAUSE THEIR SPOKESHAVEN ECONOMETRIC SCALES RATHER THAN FINIFUGAL FRIGHTS OF RHADAMANTHINE ESBAT OLMS OF SACRIFICE BECOME THE BEAM OF THE BEATIFICATION OF THE WORLD UNDER GODS MAJESTIC MANDATES. AMEN
the seeking eye that even seems to speak
of urgent matters at an early time
is the best weapon wielded by the weak

not in the option given to the meek
to keep heads lowered as the sweet bells chime
the seeking eye that even seems to speak

looks through a wall apparently unique
but hidden in its recesses and grime
is the best weapon wielded by the weak

a simple tool not modern nor antique
whose users have come under in their prime
the seeking eye that even seems to speak

and not been frighted they are past critique
able to know just where in the long climb
is the best weapon wielded by the weak

those who are able find they are to peek
in hidden places for the true sublime
the seeking eye that even seems to speak
is the best weapon wielded by the weak
Namir May 2014
Broken hearts and worried minds
In love; but frighted, all of the time of time
It sits and watches, seeing things happen
Always wonderin', thinkin', lookin', and crackin'

That worryful heart always thinking the worst
Cause its been ripped and torn, and never picked first
The things it has been through, the things it has seen
The people who've stabbed it, the ones who've been mean

It makes it hard to trust when someone offers help
Even though it lets out a cry and a yelp,
But that heart does get healed in time,
By friends, family, and temporary love that seems just fine

But then that heart gets hurt again
By that love, or that friend, so it asks, when?
When will it find someone so dear?
someone to hold is tight and near.

When will it see the pain go away?
To see the end of this unending fray.
To know what its like to worry no more.
To truly have love.... amor

That heart will worry, tense up, and sigh
But it will always keep quiet, watch, and try.
L Seagull Apr 2017
'All they who thoughtless are, nor heed,
What timeDeath's messengers appear,
Must long the pangs of suffering feel
In some base body habiting.
But all those good and holy men,
What time they see Death's messengers,
Behave not thoughtless, but give heed
To what the Noble Doctrine says;
And in attachment frighted see
Of birth and death the fertile source,
And from attachment free themselves,
Thus birth and death extinguishing.
Secure and happy ones are they,
Released from all this fleeting show;
Exempted from all sin and fear,
All misery have they overcome.'
Anguttara-Nkaya, iii.35
From the Tibetan Book of The Dead
Deadman Morris Oct 2015
As a traveler of a certain Pace,
i have seen a million faces,
but i stood appalled,
by the shadow that called my name from the rest,
one who singled me out from my peers,
calling me out inciting my fears,
i stood frighted and yet somewhat relived,
by the smoothing tone of his voice,
he knew my name which came as a surprise,
even though it twas a tough decision,
i heard his words and he fled from vision,
many years would pass on by,
before he would once again meet my eyes,
but it was on the day of my death,
when i would find him again,
as i laid sick slipped into the fray,
i closed my eyes and he whispered welcome home old friend
daryll smith Mar 2016
endless suffocation the lost mixed up cut off generation
see i can claim that im a different patient
i sat here face full emotion but the rope tightens
cant lie im frighted its damnation
empty and die i try to be patent
forcing the tears but i aint crying im dying
drugs were used to escape my chemical
warfare its not the problem it the root
i scream when there's no one there life
aint fair as it seems its just another suicide scare
Mimi Bordeaux Jun 21
Shallow Victoryprose for enmities 


Where were you when I was tied to a tight right fright fight flight- out of site- bed of nails?


Where were you as I climbed the river’s apex- onto the bridge to jump into the grubby gray filthy foul nubilous turbid Yarra River during afternoon peak hour?


A couple of years later I found a path that led me to solid ground.


The floor of leaves: ashen brown- dried from the autumn skies that frighten the forest walls lived my torso and mind.


Decision plus: chambering up the tree-big burly branches to hang on to or to just hang: whatever you please- I swung backwards and jumped down only to feel fervently frighted and let down by myself.


Bad reasoning is the corner stone of every neuro-domapine- lacking- serotonin- high- chemical- affected-aneurysm-apocolptic-trip-of- nine- inch holes- cranium-madness


Am I supposed to weep at a funeral every other time?


Or cry at birthdays?


I don’t know anymore.


Lost the music in the ears.


Loud as London buses.


To Camden Town or Finsbury Park


Back North where we lunch in Hampstead Heath.


Meeting with the dead-turning life into sugar- was my soul brain fed properly.


Nice to hear the dream come truly alive.


Ears are made of wax.


Eyes to peer in.


Tax merchants visiting their wards.


I exist as a soiled tar glum stolen by a grub ancient times ago.It’s about the whole rage. Ripping into your sick mind and gut stripped out of you like a lamb slaughtered.


Another organic area of bile.


Living with a sin or kin.


Blabber- bub-drums-it into a ball


Dearth path laugh quark


Dim- win-din-pinned and high on smack


Hot tot rot amaze me with your scream number 1


Bella- we all been one sometime
It was a
DARK and STORMY
night of
ALL HALLOWS EVE,
Where the spooks
roam the night,
and have you quivering
in your knees,
Such Cold chill in the air,
Is a creatures
delight,
To run up on you and
****** you,
is your biggest fright.
They do it with force
and they do it with ease,
To seek what they want
and to chase who
they please.
As you Shriek in fear,
The creature is near,
You try to run and hide,
TOO LATE,
COS, IT'S HERE!!!!
Your Teeth start to
chattering,
and your knees are shaking
hearing WHISPERS in
the DARK and you are
suddenly awakened
You look around,
for the frighted sounds,
But there's no one around,
SO YOU START TO WIND DOWN.
THIS HALLOWS NIGHT HAS
GONE TO YOUR HEAD, BUT
YOU'RE SAFE IN YOUR HOUSE,
SO YOU GO RIGHT TO BED.
The COLD and the STILLNESS
of a STORMY NIGHT
Brings chills
down your spine
and gives you such a FRIGHT,
of a fate of your PLIGHT.
The WHISPERS in the DARK
of MYSTERIES ARE UNSEEN,
The hunt is on

So:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!


B.R.
Date: 10/6/2024
Girlamo Barbato Dec 2020
Receiveth that lady out of thy stony desolation
Her encephalon singeth melodies of starvation
Her heart is fill'd with pangs of a hungry void, butchering all sensation
Is hopeth and peace encased in the dark places?
‘r in the lighteth that aroint from her?
The lady knoweth the knowledge but yet to seeketh the problem
Hunt her with thy partisan of sorrow


How savage can life floweth?
All the lady hath left is this broken boat
Desire and tranquility the lady is sure to findeth
Cleansed and swepth away from her swinish mind
Tormented past creeps on her backeth, disappearing whenever the lady behold behind her
The lady can hark tis frighted voice reappearing in the back of her pate, taunting her as the lady soul of symphonies
The moon holds any actuality

Couldst the lady just lie f'r a moment life?
Canst catching but a wink beest h'r getaway?
The lady can’t escapeth her nightmare
But it’s the only escapeth from reality

Life is begging her to grant t one more hap
But the lady end'd up realizing tis real and not fantastical
Upon her is a falsified world that cost to exist
Birds liveth longer
Gudgeon breatheth m're
And ants art stout'r

O Lord giveth that lady thy breatheth of life
Some people crave to believeth the lacking valor instead of the valorous
O Lord maketh her alive
Giveth her a seel man’s eye
The lady wanteth to gape through the window and seeth a perfect welken
Tilt at a diff'rent angle
She sitteth, waiting until the Lord blows out her taper
Partisan puncturing a spirit of sorrow
Hope and peace

— The End —