Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o'er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

I have whirled with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

I had drifted o'er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies,
That the many-forked lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons, that out of the green waters rise.

I have plunged like a deer through the arches
Of the hoary primoridal grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches,
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove,
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers through dead branches above.

I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things, I care not to gaze on again.

I have scanned the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon rising up from the valleys
Shows the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, that I cannot endure to recall.

I have peered from the casements in wonder
At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roofed village laid under
The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble, I listen intently for sound.

I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear,
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages;
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

I was old when the pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-decked throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.

Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o'er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old
Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
The mighty master’s hands were on the keys
Of the Maria *****, which they play
When early on some sapphire Easter morn
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

From his dark House out to the Balcony
Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,
Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
To toss their silver lances in the air,
And stretching out weak hands to East and West
In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

Is not yon lingering orange after-glow
That stays to vex the moon more fair than all
Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
I knelt before some crimson Cardinal
Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous
With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring
Through this cool evening than the odorous
Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass
I see that throbbing throat which once I heard
On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves
At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,
And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves
Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe
To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait
Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,
And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees
That round and round the linden blossoms play;
And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,
And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring
While the last violet loiters by the well,
And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing
The song of Linus through a sunny dell
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
In some Illyrian valley far away,
Where canopied on herbs amaracine
We too might waste the summer-tranced day
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
Of some long-hidden God should ever tread
The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute
Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head
By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed
To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.

Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,
Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!
Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler
Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield

Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
Which all day long in vales AEolian
A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue

Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
For swallows going south, would never spread
Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
Even that little **** of ragged red,
Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy

Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems
Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant
For Cytheraea’s brows are hidden here
Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer

There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
The butterfly can see it from afar,
Although one summer evening’s dew could fill
Its little cup twice over ere the star
Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold
And be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted gold

As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae
Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss
The trembling petals, or young Mercury
Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis
Had with one feather of his pinions
Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns

Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,
Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry,—
Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre
Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me
It seems to bring diviner memories
Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,

Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies,
The tangle of the forest in his hair,
The silence of the woodland in his eyes,
Wooing that drifting imagery which is
No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis

Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both,
Fed by two fires and unsatisfied
Through their excess, each passion being loth
For love’s own sake to leave the other’s side
Yet killing love by staying; memories
Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees,

Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf
At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew
Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf
And called false Theseus back again nor knew
That Dionysos on an amber pard
Was close behind her; memories of what Maeonia’s bard

With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,
Queen Helen lying in the ivory room,
And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy
Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,
And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,
As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;

Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword
Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,
And all those tales imperishably stored
In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich
Than any gaudy galleon of Spain
Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,

For well I know they are not dead at all,
The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:
They are asleep, and when they hear thee call
Will wake and think ‘t is very Thessaly,
This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade
The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird
Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne
Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard
The horn of Atalanta faintly blown
Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering
Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring,—

Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate
That pleadest for the moon against the day!
If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate
On that sweet questing, when Proserpina
Forgot it was not Sicily and leant
Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment,—

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!
If ever thou didst soothe with melody
One of that little clan, that brotherhood
Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany
More than the perfect sun of Raphael
And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.

Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,
Let elemental things take form again,
And the old shapes of Beauty walk among
The simple garths and open crofts, as when
The son of Leto bare the willow rod,
And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish God.

Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here
Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne,
And over whimpering tigers shake the spear
With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,
While at his side the wanton Bassarid
Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid!

Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,
And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth,
Upon whose icy chariot we could win
Cithaeron in an hour ere the froth
Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun
Ceased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn

Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest,
And warned the bat to close its filmy vans,
Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast
Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans
So softly that the little nested thrush
Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rush

Down the green valley where the fallen dew
Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,
Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew
Trample the loosestrife down along the shore,
And where their horned master sits in state
Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!

Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face
Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come,
The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase
Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom,
And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride,
After yon velvet-coated deer the ****** maid will ride.

Sing on! and I the dying boy will see
Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell
That overweighs the jacinth, and to me
The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,
And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes,
And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!

Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
That foster-brother of remorse and pain
Drops poison in mine ear,—O to be free,
To burn one’s old ships! and to launch again
Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!

O for Medea with her poppied spell!
O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased
From lily to lily on the level mead,
Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste
The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,
Ere the black steeds had harried her away
Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day.

O for one midnight and as paramour
The Venus of the little Melian farm!
O that some antique statue for one hour
Might wake to passion, and that I could charm
The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair,
Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair!

Sing on! sing on!  I would be drunk with life,
Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,
I would forget the wearying wasted strife,
The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!

Sing on! sing on!  O feathered Niobe,
Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
From joy its sweetest music, not as we
Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and ****** pillowed sleep.

Sing louder yet, why must I still behold
The wan white face of that deserted Christ,
Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold,
Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,
And now in mute and marble misery
Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me?

O Memory cast down thy wreathed shell!
Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene!
O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell
Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!
Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong
To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song!

Cease, cease, or if ‘t is anguish to be dumb
Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air,
Whose jocund carelessness doth more become
This English woodland than thy keen despair,
Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay
Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.

A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,
Endymion would have passed across the mead
Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard
Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed
To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid
Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.

A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,
The silver daughter of the silver sea
With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed
Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope
Had ****** aside the branches of her oak
To see the ***** gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.

A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss
Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon
Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis
Had bared his barren beauty to the moon,
And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile
Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile

Down leaning from his black and clustering hair,
To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,
Or else on yonder grassy ***** with bare
High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis
Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer
From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear.

Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!
O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
Come not with such despondent answering!
No more thou winged Marsyas complain,
Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
And from the copse left desolate and bare
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart
Brake in each separate note, a quality
Which music sometimes has, being the Art
Which is most nigh to tears and memory;
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,
No woven web of ****** heraldries,
But mossy dells for roving comrades made,
Warm valleys where the tired student lies
With half-shut book, and many a winding walk
Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young
Across the trampled towing-path, where late
A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng
Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;
The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,
Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out
Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock
Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout
Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,
And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,
And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

The heron passes homeward to the mere,
The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,
Gold world by world the silent stars appear,
And like a blossom blown before the breeze
A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,
Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,
She knows Endymion is not far away;
’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed
Which has no message of its own to play,
So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,
Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

Ah! the brown bird has ceased:  one exquisite trill
About the sombre woodland seems to cling
Dying in music, else the air is still,
So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing
Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell
Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.

And far away across the lengthening wold,
Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,
Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold
Marks the long High Street of the little town,
And warns me to return; I must not wait,
Hark! ’Tis the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.

It is full winter now:  the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And ***** his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter:  and the ***** goodman brings
His load of ******* from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll;—do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same:  ’tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same:  ’tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor,—for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

To burn with one clear flame, to stand *****
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
Hence!  Hence!  I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

More barren—ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless ***** bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life:  was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
Is childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven:  the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much:  for like the Dial’s wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle!  Him at least
The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;

But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
Who being man died for the sake of God,
And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
With which oblivion buries dynasties
Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!
Let some young Florentine each eventide
Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain
For the vile thing he hated lurks within
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

Still what avails it that she sought her cave
That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,

What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet
Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes
Shall see them ******?  O it were meet
To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,

Our Italy! our mother visible!
Most blessed among nations and most sad,
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
That day at Aspromonte and was glad
That in an age when God was bought and sold
One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
Bind the sweet feet of Mercy:  Poverty
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
And no word said:- O we are wretched men
Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
Which slew its master righteously? the years
Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:
While as a ruined mother in some spasm
Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real
One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp
That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
For whose dull appetite men waste away
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
Of things which slay their sower, these each day
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By **** and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands:  Time’s worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us:  the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The unchanged hills are with us:  but that Spirit hath passed away.

And yet perchance it may be better so,
For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
****** her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her:  in obscene
And ****** paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, could we see
The God that is within us!  The old Greek serenity

Which curbs the passion of that

Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre
Oxford June 26th, 1878.

To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’
and ‘Mirage’

I.

A year ago I breathed the Italian air,—
And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,—
These fields made golden with the flower of March,
The throstle singing on the feathered larch,
The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
The little clouds that race across the sky;
And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head,
The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
And all the flowers of our English Spring,
Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,
And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;
And down the river, like a flame of blue,
Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,
While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.
A year ago!—it seems a little time
Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,
Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,
And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow.
Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering vines,
Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,
I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,
The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet,
And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,
I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.

O how my heart with boyish passion burned,
When far away across the sedge and mere
I saw that Holy City rising clear,
Crowned with her crown of towers!—On and on
I galloped, racing with the setting sun,
And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,
I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!

II.

How strangely still! no sound of life or joy
Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy
Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day
Comes the glad sound of children at their play:
O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here
A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,
Watching the tide of seasons as they flow
From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,
And have no thought of sorrow;—here, indeed,
Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal ****
Which makes a man forget his fatherland.

Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
Thy noble dead are with thee!—they at least
Are faithful to thine honour:—guard them well,
O childless city! for a mighty spell,
To wake men’s hearts to dreams of things sublime,
Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

III.


Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,
Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,—
The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,
Gaston de Foix:  for some untimely star
Led him against thy city, and he fell,
As falls some forest-lion fighting well.
Taken from life while life and love were new,
He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;
Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head,
And oleanders bloom to deeper red,
Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.

Look farther north unto that broken mound,—
There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb
Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom,
Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,
Sleeps after all his weary conquering.
Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain
Have broken down his stronghold; and again
We see that Death is mighty lord of all,
And king and clown to ashen dust must fall

Mighty indeed their glory! yet to me
Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,
Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,
Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.
His gilded shrine lies open to the air;
And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there
The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,
The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,
The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,
The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,
The weary face of Dante;—to this day,
Here in his place of resting, far away
From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down
Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,
Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise
A marble lily under sapphire skies!

Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain
Of meaner lives,—the exile’s galling chain,
How steep the stairs within kings’ houses are,
And all the petty miseries which mar
Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong.
Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;
Our nations do thee homage,—even she,
That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
And begs in vain the ashes of her son.

O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
Ravenna guards thine ashes:  sleep in peace.

IV.

How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
Byron dwelt here in love and revelry
For two long years—a second Anthony,
Who of the world another Actium made!
Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,
Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,
’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.
For from the East there came a mighty cry,
And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,
And called him from Ravenna:  never knight
Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!
None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,
Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!
O Hellas!  Hellas! in thine hour of pride,
Thy day of might, remember him who died
To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:
O Salamis!  O lone Plataean plain!
O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!
O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!
He loved you well—ay, not alone in word,
Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword,
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:

And England, too, shall glory in her son,
Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.
No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite
Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,
Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.

For as the olive-garland of the race,
Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face,
As the red cross which saveth men in war,
As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far
By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,—
Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!

Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:
Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene
Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,
In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;
The laurels wait thy coming:  all are thine,
And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

V.

The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze
With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,
And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;—
I wandered through the wood in wild delight,
Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,
Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,
And small birds sang on every twining spray.
O waving trees, O forest liberty!
Within your haunts at least a man is free,
And half forgets the weary world of strife:
The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life
Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again
The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.
Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart!  O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

VI.

O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
Of thy great glories in the days of old:
Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see
Caesar ride forth to royal victory.
Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew
From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;
And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
Till in thy streets the Goth and *** were seen.
Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride!
For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;
And the white sheep are free to come and go
Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.

O fair!  O sad!  O Queen uncomforted!
In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,
Alone of all thy sisters; for at last
Italia’s royal warrior hath passed
Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown
In the high temples of the Eternal Town!
The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,
And with his name the seven mountains ring!

And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,
And mocks her tyrant!  Venice lives again,
New risen from the waters! and the cry
Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,
Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where
The marble spires of Milan wound the air,
Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,
And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,
Thy ruined palaces are but a pall
That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour:  far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died
In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side
Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—
Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:
And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine
From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,
Thou hast not followed that immortal Star
Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.
Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,
As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,
Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,
Mourning some day of glory, for the sun
Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,
And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,
Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,
Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there,
To mock all human greatness:  who would dare
To vent the paltry sorrows of his life
Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife
Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride
Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride
Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!
The Queen of double Empires! and to thee
Were not the nations given as thy prey!
And now—thy gates lie open night and day,
The grass grows green on every tower and hall,
The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;
And where thy mailed warriors stood at rest
The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.
O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,
O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,
Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,
But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,
From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;
Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,
Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?
Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose
To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;
As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold
From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;
As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

O much-loved city!  I have wandered far
From the wave-circled islands of my home;
Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome
Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,
Clothed in the royal purple of the day:
I from the city of the violet crown
Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,
And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea
From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;
Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,
As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen
Some twenty summers cast their doublets green
For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain
To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,
Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed
Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed,
Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,
And flame across the heavens! and to try
Such lofty themes were folly:  yet I know
That never felt my heart a nobler glow
Than when I woke the silence of thy street
With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet,
And saw the city which now I try to sing,
After long days of weary travelling.

VII.

Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,
I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow
From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:
The sky was as a shield that caught the stain
Of blood and battle from the dying sun,
And in the west the circling clouds had spun
A royal robe, which some great God might wear,
While into ocean-seas of purple air
Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

Yet here the gentle stillness of the night
Brings back the swelling tide of memory,
And wakes again my passionate love for thee:
Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come
On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;
And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,
And send up lilies for some boy to mow.
Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,
Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;
And after that the Winter cold and drear.
So runs the perfect cycle of the year.
And so from youth to manhood do we go,
And fall to weary days and locks of snow.
Love only knows no winter; never dies:
Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies
And mine for thee shall never pass away,
Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silent evening star,
The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,
And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.
Perchance before our inland seas of gold
Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,
Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,
I may behold thy city; and lay down
Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

Adieu!  Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

A Tale for the Mid-Winter Season after the Mural by Carl Larrson

On the shortest day I wake before our maids from the surrounding farms have converged on Sundborn. Greta lives with us so she will be asleep in that deep slumber only girls of her age seem to own. Her tiny room has barely more than a bed and a chest for her clothes. There is my first painting of her on the wall, little more a sketch, but she was entranced, at seeing herself so. To the household she is a maid who looks after me and my studio,  though she is a literate, intelligent girl, city-bred from Gamla Stan but from a poor home, a widowed mother, her late father a drunkard.  These were my roots, my beginning, exactly. But her eyes already see a world beyond Sundborn. She covets postcards from my distant friends: in Paris, London, Jean in South America, and will arrange them on my writing desk, sometimes take them to her room at night to dream in the candlelight. I think this summer I shall paint her, at my desk, reading my cards, or perhaps writing her own. The window will be open and a morning breeze will make the flowers on the desk tremble.

Karin sleeps too, a desperate sleep born of too much work and thought and interruption. These days before Christmas put a strain on her usually calm disposition. The responsibilities of our home, our life, the constant visitors, they weigh upon her, and dispel her private time. Time in her studio seems impossible. I often catch her poised to disappear from a family coming-together. She is here, and then gone, as if by magic. With the older children home from their distant schools, and Suzanne arrived from England just yesterday morning, they all cannot do without lengthy conferences. They know better than disturb me. Why do you think there is a window set into my studio door? So, if I am at my easel there should be no knock to disturb. There is another reason, but that is between Karin and I.

This was once a summer-only house, but over the years we have made it our whole-year home. There was much attention given to making it snug and warm. My architect replaced all the windows and all the doors and there is this straw insulation between the walls. Now, as I open the curtains around my bed, I can see my breath float out into the cool air. When, later, I descend to my studio, the stove, damped down against the night, when opened and raddled will soon warm the space. I shall draw back the heavy drapes and open the wooden shutters onto the dark land outside. Only then I will stand before my current painting: *Brita and the Sleigh.

Current!? I have been working on this painting intermittently for five years, and Brita is no longer the Brita of this picture, though I remember her then as yesterday. It is a picture of a winter journey for a six-year-old, only that journey is just across the yard to the washhouse. Snow, frost, birds gathered in the leafless trees, a sun dog in the sky, Brita pushing her empty sledge, wearing fur boots, Lisbeth’s old coat, and that black knitted hat made by old Anna. It is the nearest I have come to suggesting the outer landscape of this place. I bring it out every year at this time so I can check the light and the shadows against what I see now, not what I remember seeing then. But there will be a more pressing concern for me today, this shortest day.

Since my first thoughts for the final mural in my cycle for the Nationalmuseum I have always put this day aside, whatever I might be doing, wherever I may be. I pull out my first sketches, that book of imaginary tableaux filled in a day and a night in my tiny garden studio in Grez, thinking of home, of snow, the mid-winter, feeling the extraordinary power and shake of Adam of Bremen’s description of 10th C pre-Christian Uppsala, written to describe how barbaric and immoral were the practices and religion of the pagans, to defend the fragile position of the Christian church in Sweden at the time. But as I gaze at these rough beginnings made during those strange winter days in my rooms at the Hotel Chevilon, I feel myself that twenty-five year old discovering my artistic vision, abandoning oils for the flow and smudge of watercolour, and then, of course, Karin. We were part of the Swedish colony at Grez-sur-Loing. Karin lived with the ladies in Pension Laurent, but was every minute beside me until we found our own place, to be alone and be together, in a cupboard of a house by the river, in Marlotte.

Everyone who painted en-plein-air, writers, composers, they all flocked to Grez just south of Fontainebleau, to visit, sometimes to stay. I recall Strindberg writing to Karin after his first visit: It was as if there were no pronounced shadows, no hard lines, the air with its violet complexion is almost always misty; and I painting constantly, and against the style and medium of the time. How the French scoffed at my watercolours, but my work sold immediately in Stockholm. . . and Karin, tall, slim, Karin, my muse, my lover, my model, her boy-like figure lying naked (but for a hat) in the long grass outside my studio. We learned each other there, the technique of bodies in intimate closeness, the way of no words, the sharing of silent thoughts, together on those soft, damp winter days when our thoughts were of home, of Karin’s childhood home at Sundborn. I had no childhood thoughts I wanted to return to, but Karin, yes. That is why we are here now.

In Grez-sur-Loing, on a sullen December day, mist lying on the river, our garden dead to winter, we received a visitor, a Swedish writer and journalist travelling with a very young Italian, Mariano Fortuny, a painter living in Paris, and his mentor the Spaniard Egusquiza. There was a woman too who Karin took away, a Parisienne seamstress I think, Fortuny’s lover. Bayreuth and Wagner, Wagner, Wagner was all they could talk about. Of course Sweden has its own Nordic Mythology I ventured. But where is it? What is it? they cried, and there was laughter and more mulled wine, and then talk again of Wagner.

When the party left I realized there was something deep in my soul that had been woken by talk of the grandeur and scale of Wagner’s cocktail of German and Scandinavian myths and folk tales. For a day and night I sketched relentlessly, ransacking my memory for those old tales, drawing strong men and stalwart, flaxen-haired women in Nordic dress and ornament. But as a new day presented itself I closed my sketch book and let the matter drop until, years later, in a Stockholm bookshop I chanced upon a volume in Latin by Adam of Bremen, his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, the most famous source to pagan ritual practice in Sweden. That cold winter afternoon in Grez returned to me and I felt, as I had then, something stir within me, something missing from my comfortable world of images of home and farm, family and the country life.

Back in Sundborn this little volume printed in the 18th C lay on my desk like a question mark without a sentence. My Latin was only sufficient to get a gist, but the gist was enough. Here was the story of the palace of Uppsala, the great centre of the pre-Christian pagan cults that brought us Odin and Freyr. I sought out our village priest Dag Sandahl, a good Lutheran but who regularly tagged Latin in his sermons. Yes, he knew the book, and from his study bookshelf brought down an even earlier copy than my own. And there and then we sat down together and read. After an hour I was impatient to be back in my studio and draw, draw these extraordinary images this text brought to life unbidden in my imagination. But I did not leave until I had persuaded Pastor Sandahl to agree to translate the Uppsala section of the Adam of Bremen’s book, and just before Christmas that year, on the day before the Shortest Day, he delivered his translation to my studio. He would not stay, but said I should read the passages about King Domalde and his sacrifice at the Winter Solstice. And so, on the day of the Winter Solstice, I did.

This people have a widely renowned sanctuary called Uppsala.

By this temple is a very large tree with extending branches. It is always green, both in winter and in summer. No one knows what kind of tree this is. There is also a spring there, where the heathens usually perform their sacrificial rites. They throw a live human being into the spring. If he does not resurface, the wishes of the people will come true.

The Temple is girdled by a chain of gold that hangs above the roof of the building and shines from afar, so that people may see it from a distance when they approach there. The sanctuary itself is situated on a plain, surrounded by mountains, so that the form a theatre.

It is not far from the town of Sigtuna. This sanctuary is completely covered with golden ornaments. There, people worship the carved idols of three gods: Thor, the most powerful of them, has his throne in the middle of the hall, on either side of him, Odin and Freyr have their seats. They have these functions: “Thor,” they say, “rules the air, he rules thunder and lightning, wind and rain, good weather and harvests. The other, Odin, he who rages, he rules the war and give courage to people in their battle against enemies. The third is Freyr, he offers to mortals lust and peace and happiness.” And his image they make with a very large phallus. Odin they present armed, the way we usually present Mars, while Thor with the scepter seems to resemble Jupiter. As gods they also worship some that have earlier been human. They give them immortality for the sake of their great deeds, as we may read in Vita sancti Ansgarii that they did with King Eirik.

For all these gods have particular persons who are to bring forward the sacrificial gifts of the people. If plague and famine threatens, they offer to the image of Thor, if the matter is about war, they offer to Odin, but if a wedding is to be celebrated, they offer to Freyr. And every ninth year in Uppsala a great religious ceremony is held that is common to people from all parts of Sweden.”
Snorri also relates how human sacrifice began in Uppsala, with the sacrifice of a king.

Domalde took the heritage after his father Visbur, and ruled over the land. As in his time there was great famine and distress, the Swedes made great offerings of sacrifice at Upsal. The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but the succeeding season was not improved thereby. The following autumn they sacrificed men, but the succeeding year was rather worse. The third autumn, when the offer of sacrifices should begin, a great multitude of Swedes came to Upsal; and now the chiefs held consultations with each other, and all agreed that the times of scarcity were on account of their king Domalde, and they resolved to offer him for good seasons, and to assault and **** him, and sprinkle the stall of the gods with his blood. And they did so.

There it was, at the end of Adam of Bremen’s description of Uppsala, this description of King Domalde upon which my mural would be based. It is not difficult to imagine, or rather the event itself can be richly embroidered, as I have over the years made my painting so. Karin and I have the books of William Morris on our shelves and I see little difference between his fixation on the legends of the Arthur and the Grail. We are on the cusp here between the pagan and the Christian.  What was Christ’s Crucifixion but a self sacrifice: as God in man he could have saved himself but chose to die for Redemption’s sake. His blood was not scattered to the fields as was Domalde’s, but his body and blood remains a continuing symbol in our right of Communion.

I unroll the latest watercolour cartoon of my mural. It is almost the length of this studio. Later I will ask Greta to collect the other easels we have in the house and barn and then I shall view it properly. But for now, as it unrolls, my drama of the Winter Solstice comes alive. It begins on from the right with body of warriors, bronze shields and helmets, long shafted spears, all set against the side of Uppsala Temple and more distant frost-hoared trees. Then we see the King himself, standing on a sled hauled by temple slaves. He is naked as he removes the furs in which he has travelled, a circuit of the temple to display himself to his starving people. In the centre, back to the viewer, a priest-like figure in a red cloak, a dagger held for us to see behind his back. Facing him, in druidic white, a high priest holds above his head a gold pagan monstrance. To his left there are white cloaked players of long, straight horns, blue cloaked players of the curled horns, and guiding the shaft of the sled a grizzled shaman dressed in the skins and furs of animals. The final quarter of my one- day-to-be-a-mural unfolds to show the women of temple and palace writhing in gestures of grief and hysteria whilst their queen kneels prostate on the ground, her head to the earth, her ladies ***** behind her. Above them all stands the forever-green tree whose origin no one knows.

Greta has entered the studio in her practiced, silent way carrying coffee and rolls from the kitchen. She has seen Midvinterblot many times, but I sense her gaze of fascination, yet again, at the figure of the naked king. She remembers the model, the sailor who came to stay at Kartbacken three summers ago. He was like the harpooner Queequeg in Moby ****. A tattooed man who was to be seen swimming in Toftan Lake and walking bare-chested in our woods. A tall, well-muscled, almost silent man, whom I patiently courted to be my model for King Dolmade. I have a book of sketches of him striding purposefully through the trees, the tattooed lines on his shoulders and chest like deep cuts into his body. This striding figure I hid from the children for some time, but from Greta that was impossible. She whispered to me once that when she could not have my substantial chest against her she would imagine the sailor’s, imagine touching and following his tattooed lines. This way, she said, helped her have respite from those stirrings she would so often feel for me. My painting, she knew, had stirred her fellow maids Clara and Solveig. Surely you know this, she had said, in her resolute and direct city manner. I have to remember she is the age of my eldest, who too must hold such thoughts and feelings. Karin dislikes my sailor king and wishes I would not hide the face of his distraught queen.

Today the sunrise is at 9.0, just a half hour away, and it will set before 3.0pm. So, after this coffee I will put on my boots and fur coat, be well scarfed and hatted (as my son Pontus would say) and walk out onto my estate. I will walk east across the fields towards Spardasvvägen. The sky is already waiting for the sun, but waits without colour, hardly even a tinge of red one might expect.

I have given Greta her orders to collect every easel she can find so we can take Midvinterblot off the floor and see it in all its vivid colour and form. In February I shall begin again to persuade the Nationalmuseum to accept this work. We have a moratorium just now. I will not accept their reasoning that there is no historical premise for such a subject, that such a scene has no place in a public gallery. A suggestion has been made that the Historiska museet might house it. But I shall not think of this today.

Karin is here, her face at the studio window beckons entry. My Darling, yes, it is midwinter’s day and I am dressing to greet the solstice. I will dress, she says, to see Edgar who will be here in half an hour to discuss my designs for this new furniture. We will be lunching at noon. Know you are welcome. Suzanne is talking constantly of England, England, and of course Oxford, this place of dreaming spires and good looking boys. We touch hands and kiss. I sense the perfume of sleep, of her bed.

Outside I must walk quickly to be quite alone, quite apart from the house, in the fields, alone. It is on its way: this light that will bathe the snowed-over land and will be my promise of the year’s turn towards new life.

As I walk the drama of Midvinterblot unfolds in a confusion of noise, the weeping of women, the physical exertions of the temple slaves, the priests’ incantations, the riot of horns, and then suddenly, as I stand in this frozen field, there is silence. The sun rises. It stagge

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
And holding wave and wind in boy’s despite
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night.

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky,
And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear,
And bade the pilot head her lustily
Against the nor’west gale, and all day long
Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ time with measured song.

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red
Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay,
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head,
And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,

And a rich robe stained with the fishers’ juice
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought
Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,
And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,
And by the questioning merchants made his way
Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet
Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd
Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat
Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring
The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd fling

The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang
His studded crook against the temple wall
To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang
Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall;
And then the clear-voiced maidens ‘gan to sing,
And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering,

A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery
Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb
Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee
Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil
Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked
spoil

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid
To please Athena, and the dappled hide
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade
Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried,
And from the pillared precinct one by one
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had
done.

And the old priest put out the waning fires
Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed
For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres
Came fainter on the wind, as down the road
In joyous dance these country folk did pass,
And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass.

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
And seemed to be in some entranced swoon
Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,
When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad,
And flinging wide the cedar-carven door
Beheld an awful image saffron-clad
And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared
From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and ruin flared

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled
The Gorgon’s head its leaden eyeballs rolled,
And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield,
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold
In passion impotent, while with blind gaze
The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze.

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp
Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen *****
Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast
Divide the folded curtains of the night,
And knelt upon the little ****, and prayed in holy fright.

And guilty lovers in their venery
Forgat a little while their stolen sweets,
Deeming they heard dread Dian’s bitter cry;
And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats
Ran to their shields in haste precipitate,
Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet.

For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear,
And the air quaked with dissonant alarums
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,
And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed,
And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cavalcade.

Ready for death with parted lips he stood,
And well content at such a price to see
That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,
The marvel of that pitiless chastity,
Ah! well content indeed, for never wight
Since Troy’s young shepherd prince had seen so wonderful a sight.

Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh,
And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair,
And from his limbs he throw the cloak away;
For whom would not such love make desperate?
And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands violate

Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,
And bared the ******* of polished ivory,
Till from the waist the peplos falling down
Left visible the secret mystery
Which to no lover will Athena show,
The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of
snow.

Those who have never known a lover’s sin
Let them not read my ditty, it will be
To their dull ears so musicless and thin
That they will have no joy of it, but ye
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile,
Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen yet awhile.

A little space he let his greedy eyes
Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight
Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,
And then his lips in hungering delight
Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck
He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion’s will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,
And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In exquisite pulsation, and the pain
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew.

They who have never seen the daylight peer
Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain,
And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear
And worshipped body risen, they for certain
Will never know of what I try to sing,
How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering.

The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,
The sign which shipmen say is ominous
Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,
And the low lightening east was tremulous
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn,
Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast
Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan,
And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed,
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran
Like a young fawn unto an olive wood
Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood;

And sought a little stream, which well he knew,
For oftentimes with boyish careless shout
The green and crested grebe he would pursue,
Or snare in woven net the silver trout,
And down amid the startled reeds he lay
Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the day.

On the green bank he lay, and let one hand
Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly,
And soon the breath of morning came and fanned
His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly
The tangled curls from off his forehead, while
He on the running water gazed with strange and secret smile.

And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak
With his long crook undid the wattled cotes,
And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke
Curled through the air across the ripening oats,
And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed
As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.

And when the light-foot mower went afield
Across the meadows laced with threaded dew,
And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,
And from its nest the waking corncrake flew,
Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream
And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem,

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,
‘It is young Hylas, that false runaway
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed
Forgetting Herakles,’ but others, ‘Nay,
It is Narcissus, his own paramour,
Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.’

And when they nearer came a third one cried,
‘It is young Dionysos who has hid
His spear and fawnskin by the river side
Weary of hunting with the Bassarid,
And wise indeed were we away to fly:
They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.’

So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
And no man dared to cross the open green,
And on that day no olive-tree was slain,
Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain,

Save when the neat-herd’s lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer, and then half afraid
Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade

A little girl ran laughing from the farm,
Not thinking of love’s secret mysteries,
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm
And all his manlihood, with longing eyes
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity
Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily.

Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise,
And now and then the shriller laughter where
The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,
And now and then a little tinkling bell
As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well.

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-rat
Breasting the little ripples manfully
Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough
Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the
slough.

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds
As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass,
The ouzel-**** splashed circles in the reeds
And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s glass,
Which scarce had caught again its imagery
Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly.

But little care had he for any thing
Though up and down the beech the squirrel played,
And from the copse the linnet ‘gan to sing
To its brown mate its sweetest serenade;
Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen
The ******* of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen.

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats
With whistling pipe across the rocky road,
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes
Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode
Of coming storm, and the belated crane
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,
And from the gloomy forest went his way
Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,
And came at last unto a little quay,
And called his mates aboard, and took his seat
On the high ****, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping
sheet,

And steered across the bay, and when nine suns
Passed down the long and laddered way of gold,
And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons
To the chaste stars their confessors, or told
Their dearest secret to the downy moth
That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth

Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes
And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked
As though the lading of three argosies
Were in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked,
And darkness straightway stole across the deep,
Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep,

And the moon hid behind a tawny mask
Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean’s marge
Rose the red plume, the huge and horned casque,
The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!
And clad in bright and burnished panoply
Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!

To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks
Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet
Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks,
And, marking how the rising waters beat
Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried
To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side

But he, the overbold adulterer,
A dear profaner of great mysteries,
An ardent amorous idolater,
When he beheld those grand relentless eyes
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’
Leapt from the lofty **** into the chill and churning foam.

Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,
One dancer left the circling galaxy,
And back to Athens on her clattering car
In all the pride of venged divinity
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank,
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank.

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen,
And the old pilot bade the trembling crew
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen
Close to the stern a dim and giant form,
And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm.

And no man dared to speak of Charmides
Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought,
And when they reached the strait Symplegades
They beached their galley on the shore, and sought
The toll-gate of the city hastily,
And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery.

“Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!

“Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-Tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!”

Thus aloud cried Hiawatha
In the solitary forest,
By the rushing Taquamenaw,
When the birds were singing gayly,
In the Moon of Leaves were singing,
And the sun, from sleep awaking,
Started up and said, “Behold me!
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me!”

And the tree with all its branches
Rustled in the breeze of morning,
Saying, with a sigh of patience,
“Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!”

With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward:
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

“Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!”

Through the summit of the Cedar
Went a sound, a cry of horror,
Went a murmur of resistance;
But it whispered, bending downward,
“Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!”

Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a framework,
Like two bows he formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.

“Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-Tree!
My canoe to bind together.
So to bind the ends together,
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!”

And the Larch, with all its fibres,
Shivered in the air of morning,
Touched his forehead with its tassels,
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow,
“Take them all, O Hiawatha!”

From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree,
Closely sewed the bark together,
Bound it closely to the framework.

“Give me of your balm, O Fir-Tree!
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!”

And the Fir-Tree, tall and sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Rattled like a shore with pebbles,
Answered wailing, answered weeping,
“Take my balm, O Hiawatha!”

And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the Fir-Tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.

“Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog!
I will make a necklace of them,
Make a girdle for my beauty,
And two stars to deck her *****!”

From a hollow tree the Hedgehog
With his sleepy eyes looked at him,
Shot his shining quills, like arrows,
Saying, with a drowsy murmur,
Through the tangle of his whiskers,
“Take my quills, O Hiawatha!”

From the ground the quills he gathered,
All the little shining arrows,
Stained them red and blue and yellow,
With the juice of roots and berries;
Into his canoe he wrought them,
Round its waist a shining girdle,
Round its bow a gleaming necklace,
On its breast two stars resplendent.

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the ***** of the forest;
And the forest’s life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch-tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch’s supple sinews;
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily.

Paddles none had Hiawatha,
Paddles none he had or needed,
For his thoughts as paddles served him,
And his wishes served to guide him;
Swift or slow at will he glided,
Veered to right or left at pleasure.

Then he called aloud to Kwasind,
To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Saying, “Help me clear this river
Of its sunken logs and sand-bars.”

Straight into the river Kwasind
Plunged as if he were an otter,
Dived as if he were a ******,
Stood up to his waist in water,
To his arm-pits in the river,
Swam and shouted in the river,
Tugged at sunken logs and branches,
With his hands he scooped the sand-bars,
With his feet the ooze and tangle.

And thus sailed my Hiawatha
Down the rushing Taquamenaw,
Sailed through all its bends and windings,
Sailed through all its deeps and shallows,
While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.

Up and down the river went they,
In and out among its islands,
Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar,
Dragged the dead trees from its channel,
Made its passage safe and certain
Made a pathway for the people,
From its springs among the mountains,
To the water of Pauwating,
To the bay of Taquamenaw.

You said you'd come to tea
so I made a cake
chocolate sweet; maraschino filled;
girdled with a satin blue ribbon;
set out the prettiest plates;
hand painted with forget-me-nots.
And from the darkest corner of a drawer
found a single candle to celebrate the day.
I'd understand if you had 'phoned,
but now the chocolate lends a bitter taste
and even the despairing posies have given up all hope
as the candle's flame flickers my ever waiting shadow.

ODE TO  RIOTERS
The clouds rumble , O! sons of Malice ,hear
The smoke of arson and roar of lies
In the name of God in heaven; to the tune of lords near
Ignorant men  , followers of Dionysus fly like flies.
Think ! read ,what the history of man tells
Of fire that Prometheus brought for our happiness
But, ingratitude of satanic forces by  spells
Inflame the fire of Ire and burn the huts; brings unhappiness.
Tempters like Hera of Zeus pleasantly smile
Resting in Bars or legislatures , counting votes on computer screen
Echo of slogans on Equality, Fraternity, Liberty from a mile
Makes in social conscience  a  scathing scene.
The land of Buddha. Abraham Lincoln, prophets of peace all
Sent by God to every race and all clans dull,
Told the people all over to be kind
Loving ,lovable and of service mind.
(2).
O! political crookedness, in struggle for power  you tempt
People to compete and hate and conquer
By communal spirit forgetting  Divine Spirit and contempt
Religious heads and political aspirants together
Like criminals think and twist the holy ideas, even
They hold holy books in left hand and in right hand gun
And advice disciples to die and **** for heroic heaven
For them, as if death is an easy going fun;
The First Estate of France still as  impulses here in world
Reign the countries as rulers  of Democracy mocking
And they jointly exploit subjects ; and devotees of the spiritual world,
Misguide men and women  by prayers rocking
Hope of Heaven and horror of Hell
Make the people, forget all , and yell
When the villainous leaders signal by baton
The desperados become boys wanton.
(3)
O! devilish War-Lords, do you read Vedic Books?
What they mean ? for you mean? as they tell of God ,the sole Creator
The Creator of you and the “Other”  in your hooks.
The Preserver and Destroyer , may not be for you Pharaohs greater,
O! Pharaohs , you don’t  cause rain, make the Sun rise
And the greenery, birds and fish flourish .
When the Earth rumbles and tsunami rages you give the price
The rewards of hatred you sowed nourish-
All around ,as chemical war terrorism-a horrible nightmare
But, Epicureans! All are from Him and unto Him all shall return.
Marketing competitions and sale of arms cause the Wars
As history reminds us :none gained but failed to sustain peace;
Still, the blunder of division of people and exploitation stars
Rise , at the West with the dying Sun’s horses and Mars.
Politics and Economics -two horses of Civilization unbridled
Terribly gallop with men on them girdled.
(4)
O! cruel  egoistic  businessmen ,you globalize immorality
By greed, you trade with  fanatics and  terrorists,
Spur clashes: Multiculturism versus monoculturism  denying plurality
Challenging Eternity; certainty of scientists.
At Saranath,Lord  Buddha told  disciples on the Middle Path of  life
To Torah “The Lord our God , the Lord is One”, so Jesus taught us all
And guided to worship  God in” Spirit and truth “ in our life
No other Lord but Allah deserves worship of us all-
Allah is the Light of the Earth, and of the Sky ,O! Lord
God is the Eternal  Light  to illuminate all  ;to be worshiped
Bhagavat Gita says,"The body is the temple of God
In the Spiritual realm : all are from the One ,the  worshipped.
God is the only One without birth and death
The Unique unlike the creatures on earth
The Force is called “atma” by Vedas no trade and
Sciences  tell: it is Eternal  , cannot be made by human hand. .
(5)
O! the ill -taught  simpletons , think !why shall we spoil life
in feuds communal or political  for the luxury of masters
Suicide never a sacrifice; if at all ,it is beheading of human in life
At the altar of regal, egotist power-mongers.
The Only God is the  Seed of all; names may differ by language difference
Holy books use all noble qualities to the name the Supreme Lord
Then, why the sons of that One Lord, in repentance
Think on action : virtue  or evil and pray: forgive ,O! Lord
In democracy, we are free to believe  the God or not
Still, we can be human by refraining from paining others
Freeing ourselves from communal hatred, the vicious knot
As the political fences   encircle us that make us enemies of others.
Stars in the sky and the Sun and the Moon
Are mortal ones from God for our boon.
Let us be men and women loving all , serving all;
Not severing heads; but lead a life ,culturally tall.
                                             ***********
Note:atma=soul.

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Gold shed upon suckling gold,
The time of the bole blackens,
Of the dark mounted through dapple,
While in the sealed apple
The seed cradled toward cold.
A gold on gold spent,
Put by from an elm in its years
Now its gilded of days,
Over turf’s dishevelment;
Where all which is green sickens,
All the fresh shall be sere.
All which is green sickens,
And it is but for a time
Those embered veinings blaze
A year’s delirium;
Or neared of other space,
Unportioned azure shall close
One of more, and which is,
One which goes.
Let the little pupils that will,
Of vision, gaze for salt
To whet their gazing, wit
In one weather is high
From burrow and lair, by
Nether providences’ default
An all’s accrued.
And apposite, beyond
Such primer beholdings, has
Its long accounting known


The beetle’s morsel thus
Was rich, and the slug’s bed on
The oak’s generations, deep
Over the lark’s bones.
In slough of Edens fast
Wit in one weather shall stand,
While millennia nibble at
The sensual apple
Toppled it net,
Plenty in the palm of the hand,
And the fallen not fallen, not lost
From out its certitude—
For our unbeggaring
Has been gross. Few and late
To cherish an immoderate
Wish, hope’s calculus,
Love’s hope; few to miss,
From natural tally ******,
In the lime-girdled space
Of choice, where alone
Man can abandon what
Is only his own;
And in cold and tarrying
Their rearisers sleep:


While to the granite cheek
Light’s purples bring
Infinite their ministering,
And past our finial
And ragged crests, to keep
Time’s ambient stood,
Propose horizons from
Their shadowy quarries; while,
In an unwandered wood,
Or under the indifferent foot,
Is let fall, let fall a fruit,
Through eternal leisures down,
For but time’s unravelling.

because our dreams of leaf-canopies and lignin
arrive at a certain variety of green, we will zither
anew with song

here in Bulacan; all the leaves are capsized
brandishing inflorescences as naked as
  the scent of petrichor girdled
on the cobblestones: they are forsaken not by
trees but by seasons only, a twofold deliberation
of caprice: there is only two of what is spoken.
   such is the warmth and coldness,
missing their obvious targets, hesitant and abstruse,
  scattered and at long last, never collected

deftly camouflaged in the familiar drapery,
“Tantusan mo!” as they cry for marks to remember,
we touch the cicatrix to measure with our jagged hands
how much we have forgotten.

what we cease to remember descends deep, as wash-hand basins
concur such depth,
into the well of ourselves, later to discover such
perilous foundling in the squall of either morning or evening,
   still devoid of sense: still arguing whether there is much
to reconcile with what has been found and what has been pictured
   now, altered by such loss: this is danger, and so is nothing,

swollen and tender, the waters of the estero reek of such
remembering – we cannot ignore its perfume, oddly taking the shape
of the next dagger slowly making its way towards the back
of the skull to pare with river-run precision, what we all
try to hold back inside; so as if to say,
             “Tantusan mo!” to remember
where     we last    took  off,  like a heron,
   or a  bird, wary of distances.

The Lotos-Eaters

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

   Choric Song

        I

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

        II

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

        III

Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

        IV

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

        V

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

        VI

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

        VII

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.

        VIII

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

For Margot


Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings
To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of
ineffable things,
Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing
future and past,
Mak'st the Present an infinite length, my soul all-One
with the Vast,
The Lone, the Unnameable God, that is ice of His
measureless cold,
Without being or form or abode, without motion or
matter, the fold
Where the shepherded Universe sleeps, with nor sense
nor delusion nor dream,
No spirit that wantons or weeps, no thought in its silence
supreme.
I sit, and am utterly still; in mine eyes is my fathomless
lust
Ablaze to annihilate Will, to crumble my being to dust,
To calcine the dust to an ash, to burn up the ash to an air,
To abolish the air with a flash of the final, the fulminant
flare.
All this I have done, and dissolved the primordial germ
of my thought;
I have rolled myself up, and revolved the wheel of my
being to Naught.
Is there even the memory left? That I was, that I am?
It is lost.
As I utter the Word, I am cleft by the last swift spear of
the frost.
Snow! I am nothing at last; I sit, and am utterly still;
They are perished, the phantoms, and past; they were
born of my weariness-will
When I craved, craved being and form, when the con-
sciousness-cloud was a mist
Precurser of stupor and storm, when I and my shadow
had kissed,
And brought into life all the shapes that confused the
clear space with their marks,
Vain spectres whose vapour escapes, a whirlwind of
ruinous sparks,
No substance have any of these; I have dreamed them in
sickness of lust,
Delirium born of disease-ah, whence was the master,
the "must"
Imposed on the All? is it true, then, that
something in me
Is subject to fate? Are there two, after all,
that can be?
I have brought all that is to an end; for myself am suffic-
ient and sole.
Do I trick myself now? Shall I rend once again this
homologous Whole?
I have stripped every garment from space; I have
strangled the secre of Time,
All being is fled from my face, with Motion's inhibited
rime.
Stiller and stiller I sit, till even Infinity fades;
'Tis an idol-'tis weakness of wit that breeds, in inanity,
shades!
Yet the fullness of Naught I become, the deepest and
steadiest Naught,
Contains in its nature the sum of the functions of being
and thought.
Still as I sit, and destroy all possible trace of the past,
All germ of the future, nor joy nor knowledge alive at the
last,
It is vain, for the Silence is dowered with a nature, the
seed of a name:
Necessity, fearfully flowered with the blossom of possible
Aim.
I am Necessity? Scry Necessity mother of Fate!
And Fate determines me "I"; and I have the Will to create.
Vast is the sphere, but it turns on itself like the pettiest
star.
And I am the looby that learns that all things equally are.
Inscrutable Nothing, the Gods, the cosmos of Fire and
of Mist.
Suns,atoms, the clouds and the clouds ineluctably dare
to exist-
I have made the Voyage of Thought, the Voyage of Vision,
I swam
To the heart of the Ocean of Naught from the source of
the Spring of I am:
I know myself wholly the brother alike of the All and the
One;
I know that all things are each other, that their sum and
their substance is None;
But the knowledge itself can excel, its fulness hath broken
its bond;
All's Truth, and all's falsehood as well, and-what of the
region beyond?
So, still though I sit, as for ever, I stab to the heart of my
spine;
I destroy the last seed of endeavour to seal up my soul
in the shrine
Of Silence, Eternity, Peace; I abandon the Here and the
Now;
I cease from the effort to cease; I absolve the dead I from
its Vow,
I am wholly content to be dust, whether that be a mote
or a star,
To live and to love and to lust, acknowledge what seem
for what are,
Not to care what I am, if I be, whence I came, whither go,
how I thrive,
If my spirit be bound or be free, save as Nature contrive.
What I am, that I am, 'tis enough. I am part of a glorious
game.
Am I cast for madness or love? I am cast to esteem them
the same.
Am I only a dream in the sleep of some butterfly?
Phantom of fright
Conceived, who knows how, or how deep, in the measure-
less womb of the night?
I imagine impossible thought, metaphysical voids that
beget
Ideas intagible wrought to things less conceivable yet.
It may be. Little I reck -but, assume the existence of
earth.
Am I born to be hanged by the neck, a curse from the
hour of my birth?
Am I born to abolish man's guilt? His horrible heritage,
awe?
Or a seed in his wantoness spilt by a jester? I care not
a straw,
For I understand Do what thou wilt; and that is the whole
of the Law.

blood now is the accoutrement.
night's tenure is the morning's
leasing: what will continue to
  light like a beacon in this
    vicissitude is the flash
    of a *****-nosed nozzle.

no sound is heard.
no bones were felt
trembling.
all the voices were muffled,
thrown into a makeshift exodus.

the pains will be etched away
like moss unraveling the secret
of wall upon wounds like old scarves.

but the ground,
which has girdled this resounding feat, will never forget:
death's squadron enters. harbingers.
what has hidden them in the lull
has now sung severances:
a distance closed
by a fusillade
of bullets.

Through the laden flights of ***-stewed gulls -
Deepening in red rosaries to poltroon,
Contaminated by an urgent wish,
The sun-soaked merry bandits blew.

Each to each, and, mingling with that sweaty palm,
Dolorous eyes sad-greeted the fleeing dawn.
Pancreas then, the earth-girdled Titan swam,
Anon the rising tide to stem.

Dentist the night, repair to dance-floored beams,
And rising melodiously ever anew to pine,
Sweet ***** dreaming of her saw-toothed chemise
Saw the fine end to the upstart king.

Curtains swayed against my pearly doom
Not brightly was your plainting song
Palpitating in earthly measures anew
Or seeking once more the mighty to appease.

O David, in thy glance the silver moth did live
Long dawns. An enemy of the swordfish,
He menaced us so long. And now?
Sporadic is the demise of depth!

A silver sea, or rather a sea with a fine multitude of
silver points
Caressing my eyes like toothless counterpoint to the
stately blue.
It gave a floor to a weening being of prancing gait and
measured thighs.

She smiled.

And the sea broke and roared, as ever,
and I heard it once more.
I saw too the sky, which had sufficient blue.
  Cooled by the sea,
warmed by the setting rays and mild air, the body
luxuriated in perfect
temperature.  She did not smile, but perhaps she did..
My body, I mean.

We came away, from there, as from all places to meet
another need.
of darkness and quiet.  Foamed the elements of slaking
portions of
mysterious
substance.  Surrendered to the moving body without
real life.
  Borne along on a
stream of liquid desire residing in another's
breast.
  Relinquishing her to a
perfect nothingness like lead or caviare.
        Oh, and who awaited me?  She was imprisoned
but beautiful
and I thought
quite happy.  I don't think she even wanted to come
to me,
or so it seemed.  But she was happier too outside,
in the waning sun.
  Mainly she had been safe and free.
     And there's an end of this day, which roamed
whither it would,
for I did not attempt to chain it.  Now I flee it.

“I love you like the moon.”

         “I’d do anything to see that smile.”

                      “I’m standing on a roof
               and the tingle of the edge
                          reminds me of you..”

                 “Anything, anything for those eyes.”

            “Do you want the gifts I have for you?
        *Nope, I just want you.
                 Kay, I’ll wear a bow.
         I’ll wear a bow too..”

                              too,
               too,
too,

  girdled,
       packed up,
   ensnared, stacked, ****** up -
  
      All fickle,
   molded, folded
           to the point where the paper
         starts to tear,
                    
   “One day, we’ll get married.”

Cold,
    recycled feelings
   and you still don’t care?
Care enough to play nice
   with the frail beast
          at your feet,
  the silent song
whisking
   the oil
                 and
         water
  into grey -
      
    “A fantasy –that’s what you are to me..”

Vacuous games
    you still like to play -

   as if
      I were a fool, too,
                     like him –

       or a fool, too,
                               like you -

  not to see how bad you are,
             how sad you are,

           lonesome,

         aching baritone
     deceiving a different home
       with the loudness still in your lap,

       ended with that slap,
        started, again, with that stare,
      that glare into a promise,
          a dream worth more while
        than a bed full of loveless tricks
             and a jealous heart
                rung out,
        back in the back,
           where the bees feast
                on all the hot meat
            swallowed,
      inhaled by your salty appetite

                              for sadness,
                                 contrived madness,

              again,
              again,
             ­ agrain?,
              again,
              again?,
          ­    again,
              a_pain -

                  ****,

ungird me from this swaddling love cocoon,
                     unshackle me,
                         untie me from this camouflaging lie,
                                       unwind me,
                                    unbind me,

              don’t blanket me with all
               you think I want to hear…

        if you don’t want me -
             let me love another      


        “..almost like it gives you joy crushing me so hard -
                   all I’ve done is love you.”

The tendril trees
Girdled, rootless, leafless, and lifeless
Planted Along trails
Blazed by the pony Express
DOT DOT DOT
DASH DASH DASH
DOT DOT DOT
Information fast

The tethered tress
Link each house online
So that lights will burn
Talk is text

Manners dictate it to be rude
Don't ring the phone at five
Its dinner time
Sadly
No one is home

Its the modern family plan
Rarely if ever is everyone
Together at once
The hearth is cold
The head of the table empty
No one is home

Da da ling da da ling da da ling
Hello Leave a message at the beep
Beep

The connected age
A virtual world of
Artificial togetherness

On his head
  was tattooed
           a number,

While through
        his mind flew
                destruction..

Over his shoulder blew Kong,
    and upon Kong's war plate of torture,
    and a vice gripped and girdled waist,
with spikes tipped to rip any mans flesh.

A chain mail vest webbed with deceit,
   and acute, dispirited despair
     lay sheathed beside his broad hips.

You see him and terror grips,
               when through his eye
                  your eyes are reflected.

                    What is your number.

Guess all
      you want,
           it can't be read
                back to front
                   in the mirror.

It can't be
scrubbed clean
with the finest of lye.

Your number is your number
           and when it's up, it's up.


© 2005

All Rights Reserved

Its perspective skewed,
the lie of this land
is all tilts and angles.
Black-thorned hedges
rise in white clouds
to the hilltop farm.
On this Damson Day
it is a damp-mist morning,
the horizon a grey smudge.

Up forest trail and fell-ward,
on the left, a winter-laid hedge,
to the right, a mossy wall.
A riot of new growth lies
at the feet, by the hand:
wild garlic, wilder strawberry,
fresh ferns, and the tiniest violets
hiding on this old path.
Steep steps climb
to a four-acre orchard
primrosed under the pint-sized
trunks of its wiry trees.

There’s the blossom, white as snow.

Hard to imagine
five months hence,
fully plummed and picked,
Bullace and Damascene
driven by the cartload
to Kendal market.
250 tons they’d reckoned
once, taken by train
to the Preston canners.
Nearer home the fruit
was gined and beered,
cheesed and chucknied.

Then into the forest,
a plantation girdled
by a dry stone wall
tall on the moorland edge
where beyond
the grey limestone shards
have broken through what
little grass is left  
for absent cattle.

Wild with wind
up here today,
so down to reclaim
the forest’s shelter,
and down through fields
to a farm en fête
all cars and crowds.

This, a damson day of best-judged jam,
with artisan breads, Morris with swords,
fiddling folk, agility dogs, St Kilda sheep,
blue eggs and tents of crafts galore.

In the mist and drizzle
homeward and facing west,
there across the valley lie
outposts of blossoming,
fields embroidered,
and the farms necklaced.

I banished my muse
to mute-happy land
erased what I felt
and wrote what I knew
an epic that would have compelled you
to ****** my hair and undress
my identity girdled in crisis
something that would have unfurled
the fist of your heart
and pumped it with pulse
I wrote what would make you speak
But how many epics are there in our world
exiled in drawers and attics
versed in the ominous dust of the right time
maybe unearthed past the prime of their worth
if only to lure the lucre of royalty
to the unearther
With destinies lost in each others' translation
loneliness penetrates me like a ****** needle
for you'll never read
the epic I wrote for you

02 21 11

On his head
  was tattooed a number
     while through his mind
        flew destruction.

Over his shoulder blew Kong,
        and upon Kong,
             war's breastplate of torture.

A viced gripped and girdled waist
  with spikes tipped to rip the flesh.
A chain mail vest webbed with deism
  and acute despair lay sheathed.

You see him and terror grips,  
           when through his eyes,
             your eyes are reflected.

What is your number.



© 2013

you are in the middle of things,
insisting importance – you would feel
shivering in the distant blue
of another girdled spark and there,
in the not-so-distant sky,
I reach for damp perimeters

and have your face conclusive
with whiteness, sure of its glare,
  crossing the frangipani outside
  my home; silence leapt borders
and now an incident. uninterrupted.
resolute. absolved.

although so suddenly moving away
kiting around and perhaps death
will deal its part when love’s done
with its tedious labor – and it will all be

moments of bliss, two people renaming
necessary haunts, laughing
  in the dense air, keeping an ear for
the spring of yourself.

How I wish I could travel the whole world,
Just marvel the grandiose sights.
But then, you’re so girdled,
Having the pleasure to get to new heights.

When you pry to me all of your voyage,
I’m all in awe since we’re alike.
For places I've wished to go to at an age,
You've been there, even donning your spike.

At times I get jealous,
You have all the might to go anywhere.
Alright, no more being callous,
How about you take me with you somewhere?

Perhaps I can fit in your luggage,
Oh wait, I’ll drink a shrink potion like Alice;
Find ways to be in the baggage,
Just to be with you, that’d be no malice.

Such places I wish you to take me with,
Something like the Louvre in France,
Maybe the air in Brazil we’ll breathe,
Or in a wall way at China we trance?

Too bad it’ll be just a dream,
Travelling beside you is merely reality.
Perhaps watching is all it seem,
Maybe I can just tweet my fantasy.

So before you fly away,
To you I leave this piece of literature.
Since all I will do is stay,
Take my heart, let it be your melancholy’s cure.

— bard of night,
         keeper of metal.
furious light flaunts no avatar.

            shadows chant a sequence
              of deathly ire. loam, dearth and girdled to
         silver mane of canal.

     Dos has died.

   father took him into an unfamiliar curve
wandered off into a reverberating
      disquiet.

                  i have buried him
      together with all loyalties — concealed
him in thin space,  decreed him
     all dogdom with     unction,

   swimmingly now, still you go, leaving
     us. it has been six years and all eternity's motors gnash
        
                 afloat is the bird
     and in the nearby ken is another dog
     panting in death-daring heat,
          
      Dos has died.

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

I adore you…

Your will undeniable,

Your word unbreakable,

Your strength undefeatable,

I never stood a chance.



You’re the all brave, all mighty,

omnipotent, omniscient,

The giver of life, the righteous,

And I must follow you, obey  you

Follow your footsteps, or be punished,



But I was disobedient,

a curdled flesh

unworthy of my creator,

A disgrace in his presence.

…



“Bless me, father, for I have sinned.”

(Your mighty fists resound inside my head.)

“Forgive me for defying you.”

(Your glorious feats like whippings I can’t bear.)

“Save me from this darkness, my savior.”

(Your word a storm outside my world.)

“And mold me in your spirit.”

(I hated you.)

“Amen.”

…

I am a follower of your girdled path through goodness,

A witness of your immortal rule.

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

people tend to come then fly away here, and we think we know them.
in memory of Busbar Dancer i had to look up James l. Dickey and he is all he said.

Falling Related Poem Content Details
BY JAMES L. DICKEY
A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her
death tonight when she was swept
through an emergency door that sud-
denly sprang open ... The body ...
was found ... three hours after the
accident.                                              
                              —New York Times
The states when they black out and lie there rolling    when they turn
To something transcontinental    move by    drawing moonlight out of the great
One-sided stone hung off the starboard wingtip    some sleeper next to
An engine is groaning for coffee    and there is faintly coming in
Somewhere the vast beast-whistle of space. In the galley with its racks
Of trays    she rummages for a blanket    and moves in her slim tailored
Uniform to pin it over the cry at the top of the door. As though she blew

The door down with a silent blast from her lungs    frozen    she is black
Out finding herself    with the plane nowhere and her body taken by the throat
The undying cry of the void    falling    living    beginning to be something
That no one has ever been and lived through    screaming without enough air
Still neat    lipsticked    stockinged    girdled by regulation    her hat
Still on    her arms and legs in no world    and yet spaced also strangely
With utter placid rightness on thin air    taking her time    she holds it
In many places    and now, still thousands of feet from her death she seems
To slow    she develops interest    she turns in her maneuverable body

To watch it. She is hung high up in the overwhelming middle of things in her
Self    in low body-whistling wrapped intensely    in all her dark dance-weight
Coming down from a marvellous leap    with the delaying, dumfounding ease
Of a dream of being drawn    like endless moonlight to the harvest soil
Of a central state of one’s country    with a great gradual warmth coming
Over her    floating    finding more and more breath in what she has been using
For breath    as the levels become more human    seeing clouds placed honestly
Below her left and right    riding slowly toward them    she clasps it all
To her and can hang her hands and feet in it in peculiar ways    and
Her eyes opened wide by wind, can open her mouth as wide    wider and ****
All the heat from the cornfields    can go down on her back with a feeling
Of stupendous pillows stacked under her    and can turn    turn as to someone
In bed    smile, understood in darkness    can go away    slant    slide
Off tumbling    into the emblem of a bird with its wings half-spread
Or whirl madly on herself    in endless gymnastics in the growing warmth
Of wheatfields rising toward the harvest moon.    There is time to live
In superhuman health    seeing mortal unreachable lights far down seeing
An ultimate highway with one late priceless car probing it    arriving
In a square town    and off her starboard arm the glitter of water catches
The moon by its one shaken side    scaled, roaming silver    My God it is good
And evil    lying in one after another of all the positions for love
Making    dancing    sleeping    and now cloud wisps at her no
Raincoat    no matter    all small towns brokenly brighter from inside
Cloud    she walks over them like rain    bursts out to behold a Greyhound
Bus shooting light through its sides    it is the signal to go straight
Down like a glorious diver    then feet first    her skirt stripped beautifully
Up    her face in fear-scented cloths    her legs deliriously bare    then
Arms out    she slow-rolls over    steadies out    waits for something great
To take control of her    trembles near feathers    planes head-down
The quick movements of bird-necks turning her head    gold eyes the insight-
eyesight of owls blazing into the hencoops    a taste for chicken overwhelming
Her    the long-range vision of hawks enlarging all human lights of cars
Freight trains    looped bridges    enlarging the moon racing slowly
Through all the curves of a river    all the darks of the midwest blazing
From above. A rabbit in a bush turns white    the smothering chickens
Huddle    for over them there is still time for something to live
With the streaming half-idea of a long stoop    a hurtling    a fall
That is controlled    that plummets as it wills    turns gravity
Into a new condition, showing its other side like a moon    shining
New Powers    there is still time to live on a breath made of nothing
But the whole night    time for her to remember to arrange her skirt
Like a diagram of a bat    tightly it guides her    she has this flying-skin
Made of garments    and there are also those sky-divers on tv    sailing
In sunlight    smiling under their goggles    swapping batons back and forth
And He who jumped without a chute and was handed one by a diving
Buddy. She looks for her grinning companion    white teeth    nowhere
She is screaming    singing hymns    her thin human wings spread out
From her neat shoulders    the air beast-crooning to her    warbling
And she can no longer behold the huge partial form of the world    now
She is watching her country lose its evoked master shape    watching it lose
And gain    get back its houses and peoples    watching it bring up
Its local lights    single homes    lamps on barn roofs    if she fell
Into water she might live    like a diver    cleaving    perfect    plunge

Into another    heavy silver    unbreathable    slowing    saving
Element: there is water    there is time to perfect all the fine
Points of diving    feet together    toes pointed    hands shaped right
To insert her into water like a needle    to come out healthily dripping
And be handed a Coca-Cola    there they are    there are the waters
Of life    the moon packed and coiled in a reservoir    so let me begin
To plane across the night air of Kansas    opening my eyes superhumanly
Bright    to the ****** moon    opening the natural wings of my jacket
By Don Loper    moving like a hunting owl toward the glitter of water
One cannot just fall    just tumble screaming all that time    one must use
It    she is now through with all    through all    clouds    damp    hair
Straightened    the last wisp of fog pulled apart on her face like wool revealing
New darks    new progressions of headlights along dirt roads from chaos

And night    a gradual warming    a new-made, inevitable world of one’s own
Country    a great stone of light in its waiting waters    hold    hold out
For water: who knows when what correct young woman must take up her body
And fly    and head for the moon-crazed inner eye of midwest imprisoned
Water    stored up for her for years    the arms of her jacket slipping
Air up her sleeves to go    all over her? What final things can be said
Of one who starts her sheerly in her body in the high middle of night
Air    to track down water like a rabbit where it lies like life itself
Off to the right in Kansas? She goes toward    the blazing-bare lake
Her skirts neat    her hands and face warmed more and more by the air
Rising from pastures of beans    and under her    under chenille bedspreads
The farm girls are feeling the goddess in them struggle and rise brooding
On the scratch-shining posts of the bed    dreaming of female signs
Of the moon    male blood like iron    of what is really said by the moan
Of airliners passing over them at dead of midwest midnight    passing
Over brush fires    burning out in silence on little hills    and will wake
To see the woman they should be    struggling on the rooftree to become
Stars: for her the ground is closer    water is nearer    she passes
It    then banks    turns    her sleeves fluttering differently as she rolls
Out to face the east, where the sun shall come up from wheatfields she must
Do something with water    fly to it    fall in it    drink it    rise
From it    but there is none left upon earth    the clouds have drunk it back
The plants have ****** it down    there are standing toward her only
The common fields of death    she comes back from flying to falling
Returns to a powerful cry    the silent scream with which she blew down
The coupled door of the airliner    nearly    nearly losing hold
Of what she has done    remembers    remembers the shape at the heart
Of cloud    fashionably swirling    remembers she still has time to die
Beyond explanation. Let her now take off her hat in summer air the contour
Of cornfields    and have enough time to kick off her one remaining
Shoe with the toes    of the other foot    to unhook her stockings
With calm fingers, noting how fatally easy it is to undress in midair
Near death    when the body will assume without effort any position
Except the one that will sustain it    enable it to rise    live
Not die    nine farms hover close    widen    eight of them separate, leaving
One in the middle    then the fields of that farm do the same    there is no
Way to back off    from her chosen ground    but she sheds the jacket
With its silver sad impotent wings    sheds the bat’s guiding tailpiece
Of her skirt    the lightning-charged clinging of her blouse    the intimate
Inner flying-garment of her slip in which she rides like the holy ghost
Of a ******    sheds the long windsocks of her stockings    absurd
Brassiere    then feels the girdle required by regulations squirming
Off her: no longer monobuttocked    she feels the girdle flutter    shake
In her hand    and float    upward    her clothes rising off her ascending
Into cloud    and fights away from her head the last sharp dangerous shoe
Like a dumb bird    and now will drop in    soon    now will drop

In like this    the greatest thing that ever came to Kansas    down from all
Heights    all levels of American breath    layered in the lungs from the frail
Chill of space to the loam where extinction slumbers in corn tassels thickly
And breathes like rich farmers counting: will come along them after
Her last superhuman act    the last slow careful passing of her hands
All over her unharmed body    desired by every sleeper in his dream:
Boys finding for the first time their ***** filled with heart’s blood
Widowed farmers whose hands float under light covers to find themselves
Arisen at sunrise    the splendid position of blood unearthly drawn
Toward clouds    all feel something    pass over them as she passes
Her palms over her long legs    her small *******    and deeply between
Her thighs    her hair shot loose from all pins    streaming in the wind
Of her body    let her come openly    trying at the last second to land
On her back    This is it    this
                                                          All those who find her impressed
In the soft loam    gone down    driven well into the image of her body
The furrows for miles flowing in upon her where she lies very deep
In her mortal outline    in the earth as it is in cloud    can tell n

My demeanor is thy mistake
For thou wither down my spine,
and colour the world for thy sake
Where ye sit idled among mine,

The girdled pillar rests on his skin
and stares at me with his eyes,
The marble floor leaks my sins
for ages fly hence with the bise,

Cupid pierces thou with an arrow
Yet I smile with my grin teeth out,
It’s something thou cannot borrow
For I get hugged by a deadly gout,

The time is now begone
And mistresses art now drawn

Pavements made for pedestrians
Are covered with nothing but slight shadows
Walking on the edge
Fall off a 5 centimeter cliff
Into puddles of delicate magma
Laugh it off
Stand back straight
Up high
Head almost
But not enough
Touching the clouds
Doves are weeping above the mist
Olive branches in strands of destruction
Connotations amassing
Dynamites, pop. Pop.
Tasting feathers
While high frequencies slash eye globes with blades
Cuts above the hay
Vibrations penetrating
From anywhere
Whisk the brains
Look at the hands
look at hers
At his
Grin, frothing, grilling, flaming
Fading into dullness
Feeling water digesting
Eyes batting, lashes flowing
Chest rising up and falling
Down
Where knees are popping
And knuckles white and rose
And skin, so much of it
And eyes, so many of them
Joints activated with oil
Squeaking! Squeaking! Squeak!
Purposeless
Terribly terribly terribly
Girdled and not
Alone

Let's paint with broad brush strokes
from centuries of blood,
ye fair permeable maidens:
Once upon a summer's eve,
menotoxins killed crops and wilted spring flowers.
Pandora's box, opening to such bad reviews,
closed down and fled to a monastery,
where she wrote scarlet letters to family back home.

Vallopes of black holland cloth, intrusive
but necessary little bedfellows fit for a queen.
Don't keep us in suspense,
your fancy royal harness,
guards are posted at either side, hooked & girdled.
Take Communion some other day,
Elizabethan petticoat.

History tells of the strangest restraining order:
Hippocrates threw his two cents into the fountain,
banning bleeders from nearing the wishing well.
Hey, Father of Medicine,
our hallowed moon lures the currents,
driving us all a little mad on some enchanted evening,
not just the lassies.

The foil of every fable
rests in the absurdity of its fate,
so often presumed upon the faint of heart:
A damsel in distress,
who must be saved from herself.
The nonsense of which then seeps into the pores
of reality, rousing fear in certain unmentionables
that just might one day incite anarchy,
tipping our planet over on its side
and away we fly.

Ignorance wears rose-colored glasses.
It's high time he got his eyes checked.