by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

Fragments 91, 92, 99, 106, 104, 103, 100, 105, 101, 102, 96, 109, 93, 94, 97, 95, and 133 combined.

Raise high the beams of the raftered hall,
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Ye builders, of the bridal-dwelling!
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Lo, the bridegroom comes, as the War-god tall —
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Now nay — yet our tallest in stature excelling;
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
For stately he towers above all the throng
As the Lesbian singer towers among
All alien poets, a prince of song.

O happy bridegroom! it cometh to-day,
The bridal thine heart hith longed for aye!
At last shall she be thine own, the maid
For whom thou hast sighed, for whom thou hast prayed.
For none other maiden beneath the skies,
O bridegroom, was like unto her in thine eyes.
Whereunto may I liken thee, bridegroom dear?
To a green vine-shoot in the spring of the year.
Now, now let the bridegroom rejoice, for the bride
Into the hall cometh joyful-eyed.
Ethereal-pale is her lovely face.
Hail, bridegroom! Hail, bride, queenly in grace!
How goodly to see thy lord stands there!
And his goodness will keep him for thee ever fair.
Ah, doth she, ah doth she regretfully brood? —
Does her heart still yearn after maidenhood?
Nay, not in this hour she cries:
'Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither away
Forsaking me?'
While maidenhood replies:
'Not again unto thee shall I come for aye,
Not again unto thee!'
No more, no more doth she chant
Proud young virginity's vaunt:
'As the sweet-apple flames on the tip of a spray against the sky,
At its uttermost point, which the gleaners forgat, and passed it by —
O nay, they forgat it not, but they could not attain so high.'
But she thinks of the fate, an evil thing,
That the years fast-fleeting to fair maids bring.
When the roses are faded, the gold turns grey.
And the smoothness is furrowed, as singeth the lay —
'As the hyacinth-flower on the mountain-side that the shepherds tread
Underfoot, and low on the earth its bloom dark-splendid is shed.'
Lo, her hand into thine hath her father given.
And thou leadest her home 'neath the Star of Even;
To thy portal the bridal-train draws near.
And the Chant Processional rings out clear:
'Hail, Hesper, who bringest home all
That radiant Dawn scattered wide,
Bringest back unto fold and stall
The sheep and the goat, and thy call
Brings the child to the mother's side.
Let the rose-ringed Star of the Evenfall
Usher thee on, love's willing thrall,
Bride, garden of loves like roses blowing.
Bride, loveliest image of Paphos' Queen!
So pass to the bride-bower, pass within
To the nuptial couch, for the sweet bestowing
On the bridegroom, whose measure is overflowing.
Of the bliss, wherein honoured is Hera: 'tis owned
Of the Marriage-goddess, the silver-throned.'

Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
Bid adieu to girlish days,
Happy Love is come to woo
Thee and woo thy girlish ways—
The zone that doth become thee fair,
The snood upon thy yellow hair,

When thou hast heard his name upon
The bugles of the cherubim
Begin thou softly to unzone
Thy girlish ***** unto him
And softly to undo the snood
That is the sign of maidenhood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I am a poet.
I am an artist.
A lover of words, a shaper of thoughts, a master of feelings;
A player of emotions, a speaker of charms, a thinker of minds.
A giver of taste-and at times, a succulent creator of madness.
Madness outside such lines of timid regularity;
The rules of the common, and the inane believers of sanity.
For to me, sanity is as easy as insanity itself-
On which my life feedeth, and boldly moveth on;
And without insanity, t'ere shan't be either joy-or ecstasy;
As how ecstasy itself, in my mind, is defined by averted uneasiness,
And t'at easiness, reader, is not by any means part of;
And forever detached from, the haunting deities of contemporaneity.
Thus easily, artistry consumeth and spilleth my blood-and my whole entity;
Words floweth in my lungs, mastereth my mind, shapeth my own breath.
And sometimes, I breathest within those words themselves;
And declareth my purity within which, feeleth rejection at whose loss;
Like a princess storming about hysterically at the failure of her roses.
Ah! Poetry! The second lover of my life; the delicacy of my veins.
And I loveth, I doth love-sacredly, intensely, and expressively, all of which;
I loveth poetry as I desire my own breath, and how I loveth the muchness of my fellow nature;
Whose crazes sometimes surroundeth us like our dear lake nearby;
With its souls roaming about with water, t'at chokes and gurgles-
As stray winds collapseth around and strikest a war with which.
And most of the year-I am a star, to my own skies;
But by whose side a moon, to my rainless nights;
On the whole, I am an umbrella to my soul;
So t'at it groweth bitter not, even when t'ere is no imminent rain;
And be its savior, when all is unsaved, and everything else writhest in pain.

Thus I loveth poetry as well as I loveth my dreams;
I am a painter of such scenic phrases, whose miracles bloometh
Next to thunderstorms, and yon subsequent spirited moonbeam.
And t'eir fate is awesome and elegant within my hands;
They oft' sleep placidly against my thumbs;
Asking me, with soft-and decorous breath;
To be stroked by my enigmatic fingers;
And to calm t'eir underestimated literariness, by such ungodly beings, out t'ere.
Ah, poor-poor creatures-what a fiend wouldst but do t'is to aggravate 'em!
As above all, I feeleth but extremely eager about miracles themselves;
and duly witness, my reader-t'at t'is very eagerness shall never be corrupted;
Just as how I am a pure enthusiast of love;
And in my enthusiasm, I shareth love of both men and nature;
And dark sorrows and tears t'at oft' shadowest t'eir decent composures.
When I thirstest for touches, I simply writest 'em down;
When I am hungry for caresses, I tendeth to think them out;
I detailest everything auspiciously, until my surprised conscience cannot help but feeling tired;
But still, the love of thee, poetry, shall outwit me, and despise me deeply-
Should I find not the root, within myself, to challenge and accomplish it, accordingly.
I shall be my own jealousy, and my own failure;
Who to whose private breath feeleth even unsure.
I shall feel scarce, and altogether empty;
I shall have no more essence to be admired;
For everything shall wither within me, and leave me to no energy;
And with my conscience betrayed, I shall face my demise with a heart so despaired.
Ah, my poetry is but my everything!
'Tis my undying wave; and the casual, though perhaps unnatural;
the brother of my own soul, on whose shoulders I placeth my longings;
And on whose mouths I lieth my long-lost kisses!
Ah, how I loveth poetry hideously, but awesomely, thereof!
I loveth poetry greatly-within and outside of my own roof;
And I carest not for others' mock idyll, and adamant reproof;
For I loveth poetry as how as I respectest, and idoliseth love itself;
And when I idoliseth affection, perhaps I shall grow, briefly, into a normal human being-
A real, real human being with curdling weights of unpoetic feelings;
I shall whisper into my ears every intractable falsehood, but the customary normalcy-of creation;
And brash, brash emptiness whom my creative brains canst no longer bear!
Ah, dearest, loveliest poetry, but shall I love him?
Ah-the one whose sighs and shortcomings oft' startlest my dreams;
The one whom I oft' pictureth, and craftest like an insolent statue-
Within my morning colours, and about my petulant midnight hue?
Or, poetry, and tellest me, tellest me-whether needst I to love him more-
The one whose vice was my past-but now wishes to be my virtue,
And t'is time an amiably sober virtue-with eyes so blue and sparkling smiles so true?
Ah, poetry, tellest me, tellest me here-without delay!
In my oneness, thou shalt be my triumph, and everlasting astonishment;
Worthy of my praise and established tightness of endorsement;
But in any doubleness of my life-thou shalt be my saviour, and prompt avidity-
When all but strugglest against their trances, or even falleth silent.
Ah, poetry, thou art the symbol of my virtue thyself;
And thy little soul is my tongue;
A midnight read I hath been composing dearly all along;
My morn play, anecdote, and yet my most captivating song.

I thirstest for thee regularly, and longeth for thee every single day;
I am dead when I hath not words, nor any glittering odes in my mouth to say.
Thou art my immensity, in which everything is gullible, but truth;
And all remarks are bright-though with multiple souls, and roots;
Ah, poetry, in every summer, thou art the adored timeless foliage;
With humorous beauty, and a most intensive sacrifice no other trees canst take!
O poetry, and thy absence-I shall be dead like those others;
I shall be robbed, I shall be like a walking ghost;
I hath no more cores, nor cheers-within me, and shall wander about aimlessly, and feel lost;
Everything shall be blackened, and seen with malicious degrees of absurdity;
I shall be like those who, as days pass, bloometh with no advanced profusion,
And entertaineth their sad souls with no abundant intention!
How precarious, and notorious-shall I look, indeed!
For I shall hath no gravity-nor any sense of, or taste-for glory;
My mind shall be its own corpse, and look but grey;
Grey as if paled seriously by the passage of time;
Grey as if turned mercilessly so-by nothing sublime;
Ah, but in truth-grey over its stolen life, over its stolen breath!
I shall become such greyness, o poetry, over the loss of thee;
And treadeth around like them, whose minds are blocked-by monetary thickness;
A desire for meaningless muchness, and pretentious satire exchanged '**** 'emselves;
I shall be like 'em-who are blind to even t'eir own brutal longings!
Ah, t'ose, whose paths are threatened by avid seriousness;
And adverse tides of ambition, and incomprehensible austerity;
Ah, for to me glory is not eternal, glory is not superb;
For eternity is what matterest most, and t'at relieth not within any absence of serenity.
Ah, but sadly they realiseth, realiseth it not!
For they are never alive themselves, nor prone-to any living realisation;
And termed only by the solemnity of desire, wealthiness, and hovering accusations;
For they breathe within their private-ye' voluptuous, malice, and unabashed prejudice,
For they hath no comprehension; as they hath not even the most barren bliss!
And I wantest not to be any of them, for being such is entirely gruesome;
And I shall die of loneliness, I shall die of feasting on no mindly outcome;
For nothing more shall be fragrant within my torpid soul;
And hath courage not shall I, to fight against any fishy and foul.
My fate is tranquil, and 'tis, indeed-to be a poet;
A poet whenst society is mute, I shall speak out loud;
And whenst humanity is asleep, I wake 't with my shouts;
Ah, poetry! Thy ****** little soul is but everything to me;
And even in my future wifery, I shall still care for, and recur to thee;
And I shall devote myself to thee, and cherish thee more;
Thou hath captured me with love; and such a love is, indeed, like never before.

But too I loveth him still, as every day rises-
When the sun reappeareth, and hazy clouds are again woken so they canst praise the skies.
I loveth him, as sunrays alight our country suburbs;
With a love so wondrous; a love but at times-too ardent and superb.
Ah, and thus tellest me-tellest me once more!
To whose heart shall I benignly succumb, and trust my maidenhood?
To whose soul shall I courteously bow, and be tied-at th' end of my womanhood?
Ah, poetry, I am but now clueless, and thoroughly speechless-about my own love!
Ah, dearest-t'is time but be friendly to me, and award to me a clue!
Lendeth to me thy very genial comprehension, and merit;
Openeth my heart with thy grace, and unmistakable wit!
Drowneth me once more into thy reveries of dreams;
And finally, just finally-burstest my eyes now open, maketh me with clarity see him!

Ah, poetry, t'ose rainbows of thine-are definitely too remarkable;
As how t'ose red lips of thine adore me, and termeth me kindly, as reliable;
And thus I shall rely all my reality on thy very shoulder;
Bless me with the holiness confidentiality, and untamed ****** intelligence;
Maketh me enliven my words with love, and the healthiest, and loveliest, of allegiance.
Bless me with the flavoured showers of thy heart;
So everything foreign canst but be comely-and familiar;
And from whose verdure, and growth-I shall ne'er be apart!
And as t'is happens, holdest my hand tightly-and clutchest at my heart dearly;
Keepest me but safe here, and reachest my breath, securely!
Ah, poetry-be with me, be with me always!
Maketh me even lovelier, and loyal-to my religion;
In my daily taste-and hastes, and all these supreme oddities and evenness of life;
Maketh me but thoughtful, cheerful, and naive;
And in silence maketh me stay civil-but for my years to come;
and similarly helpeth my devotion, taste, and creativity, remain alive.

Ah, poetry, thus I shall be awake in both thy daylight, and slumbers;
And as thou shineth, I knoweth that my dreams shall never fade away;
Once more, I might have gone mad, but still-all the way better;
And whenst I am once more conscious; thou shalt be my darling;
who firmly and genuinely beggeth me t' keep writing, and in the end, beggeth me t' stay.
Leave me not, even whenst days grew dark-and lighted were only my abyss;
Invite my joy, and devour every bit of it-as one thou should neither ignore, or miss.

O, but needst I to listen to t'ese wishes, benign as t'ey are, but wild and inevitable-yet inaudible as dreams. Burnt by sophisticated passion, and whirring hells of torpid astonishment as my being at t'is moment, but smooth and glowing tenderly with affection-as thy love still I long for, woven so secretly ye' neatly alongst th' tangled paths of my mind! Yes, and its layers-turbulent patches of skin, yellow skin, crafted passionately by whose Creator, and imbued with unconquerable infatuation just like 'tis now. But no breathing soul canst I bestow it on-this overarching destiny, healthy and red as t'ose garden plums-impatient in t'eir wait for the shiny May summer-aside from thee, as 'tis but always thee, Kozarev! Uninvited as I am, by any other'ness' t'at might as well enrich my love story, as enough I feel, about t'at unrelenting history! Thou art th' sole man, th' only justified heart whom I adoreth, and want, so selfishly, to marry! As ripe as t'eir lips might be-but stifling, and immature in constitution, thinkable only when juxtaposed merrily with t'ose squirming nymphets about yon schoolyard; corrupted not as a newborn fern-with thighs carefully fastened to greedy-looking material, basked in immaculate sunlight, and so fresh to human sight, when all t'ese circumstances art but chaste no more, but beg, beg our hearts, and implore our worrying souls, to stay.

O Kozarev! Startled wasth I, to enter into thy proceedings, yester! Like an imbecile now my whole countenance-and its entire, ****** constitution-ah, but depleted, harmfully depleted, by laughter. What a raft of cynical conflagration! How grimly sadistic, ye' poetic in some ways! And t'ese remarks, and praises of love-begin but to dwelleth upon me all over again. Distracted is my firmness-by thy invincible power, guileless as thou hath always been, seeming not to hath heard my volatile heartbeat; and how doth I uttereth t'ose chuckles to my own mirrors upon flinging back into my bedchamber whenst our exchanges areth over. But indignant art thou not to my reddish blushes-which, like t'ose thorns of morning roses-enliven my soul up from within, after t'eir bleak winter!-and blanch darkly all my griefs away. In a thousand years and I shalt still miss thee, just like t'is, but 'tis just now t'at futility seemeth no more capable of wooing my calamity-and indulge it so adversely t'at it shalt turn towards me! Yes, how thou hath, with holiness, touched and entrapped my amorous passion, my love! In t'ese dreams-flourishing dreams, just like th' greenish pond and its superficial foliage outside, I but walk by thy moonlight and be blessed in thy fascination. Mighty and balmy shalt be th' sky overhead, hanging aloft with its mild arrogance, smelling like roofs of restrained rain-musty and soaking with glittering reproof; and wan abomination. But pure! Purity is but its sanctity, and protected by miraculous heavens, dwindling about like whitewashed statues being shoved around by a deadly lagoon of children-unknowing of what tomorrow shalt baffle us on, with faces of steel-like jubilance. And th' trees! Tropical wands be t'eir refuge-but horrifying as t'eir remorse-ah, in which souls shalt be brought about whirls of contemptuous winds, enslaved and stupefied all th' time-by mounds and havens of gruesome cruelty. But no care doth I fix on yon mortification-as thou art t'ere with me, Kozarev! Strolls shalt we take-t'ose encompassed by purplish and cheerful verdure, who admire us from t'eir gold-like stems afar-and into each other's cleavages shalt we retreat, by th' means of stories-yes, my love, stories of glee, pleasure, and yet-uneasiness, in order t'at t'ey shalt be wounded away and superseded by joy. Our love, rings of love, t'at is to come as immediate as nature might permit, and shalt allow us to admit-as yester hath unfolded, by bracing my feet for bouncing outside, across t'ese carpeted tiles-into th' very vicinity of thy chamber. Ah, thy handsome face! As white as pearls-yet frail as th' bulbous chirping snow. May I console 'em, my love, by my hands proffered-in th' most honourable marriage I desireth to come? But look, look afar, how t'ose stars-in t'is merciless universe, whispereth to one another, and talk gaily between t'eir wicked souls, of plans on bewildering our love-our bonds of vivid, mature fragrant compliments! How t'eir jealousy is mockery, and a swelling threat to us. And th' moon t'at is combing the hair, again, of t'at vicious ethereal princess-with a snooty swish of anot'er black hair-which is but a sea of anguished torment to me, should she descend the steps of her own ***** maidenhood-and carry herself off into our earth. Hark, how she doth it! How heathen, and indecent! But canst thou hear that-Kozarev? Canst thou be knowing of her shamelessness-and her counterfeit jewels? And her claws, her foster claws-ah, sharp as bullets, and notorious as her own evil heart! Luxury t'at is fake, ye' miserably auspicious! How I loathe her! Boil doth my temper at her genteel sight-and hostile auras, with t'at pair of necklaces t'at wasth born from falsehood, and ah! concealed deceit by portraits of clever contentment. How should thou hath seen her lips twitch over and over again, upon her setting t'at blackening imbecile gaze on me-me, who albeit from th' same brethren, but far from her flawless marches and stately refinement. And a creature, just a minuscule part of th' others, t'at she deems unworthy ye' deserving of torture! Silver and gold is she exclusively acquainted with, whenst torches in my garden art not even set alight. But look! How thou proudly saunter forward to welcome her, and salute her unforgiving cordiality with th' marks of thy lips, on her hand! And how t'is view scythes my chest, my heart, and tears it open just like th' blade of a sneaky knife shalt do. I am dying, dying from t'is tampered heart! And t'ese candles of my heart t'at hath been heartlessly watered-look how t'ey art brimming with sweat in cold demise. O Kozarev! Hath I been too late to seek thy love? Thy hands, my faultless prince, art but th' only mercy I canst pray for! Hath nature been so unfair as to savour all my dreams, ah, and even t'is single longing-and bequeath onto me a tragic life of undesired ghostlike mimes-in th' wholeness of my future? Thou art th' lost charm of t'at wholeness, my love, and should be I bereft of thee again, I shalt but be robbed of my entirety-and pride, womanly pride t'at I sadly out'ta hath. Ah, Kozarev, in thy movements doth I find bliss-a creaking blow to my wood-like stillness, and a cure for my sickly contrivances. I came here for thee, and always didst! Canst thou hear t'at-and satisfy this fierce longing with just a second of thy soundless touch? Lights flicker, and smile in t'eir subsequent death-but t'is is a token of subservient passion. And I shalt not give up like 'em-as t'is life greets us once only, before transporting us into regions of th' unknown-yes, it doth, my love, wherein eerieness is still questioned and overtly unfathomed. Ah, and before death I long to have you-Kozarev, and sit as we shalt-side by side, charmed by our generous yet moronic affection, until th' earth doth make us part, and shalt then we retreat into our most dimmed apertures.

Thou art my blissful paradise, Kozarev! Thy presence but bringst out my well of solemn cheers and proud, sun-like congeniality. And in t'is warm, gentle spring I shalt write but merely on thy vivacity! O imagination-blame, and curse her as thou might do, is in fact, my key, to my newborn triumph and infallible victory; th' marks of glimmering satisfaction-and visible restoration of my sin, my soul. T'is is because I believe, strongly, with all th' forlorn might of my heart, t'at sincerity shalt forever tower over every tweak of malevolent innocence and repressed wishes for destruction. 'Tis, Kozarev, is th' voice emanating towards me from within; and bracing t'ese lips, and *****, for facing her-t'at accursed rival of mine, with bravery and independence I hath never been brought to acknowledge. Ah, petrified as my customs let me be, conviction shalt stay within my hands; and t'at shadow-o, picture of our old days together, on th' veranda-yes, decorated with lights of our love, spur me on. Thy love is born as, and devoted to mine, my love! Crafted, shaped, and designated for me only-and to be mine, only mine-for evermore. We art but a chain of perfect concord, as God hath so sweetly decreed! And I shalt doth nothing else as remarkable as determine to retrieve it-with all th' charms and intellect t'at I possess-and my words as sugar sweet, as well as th' leaves of grace and my becoming, comely wit.

a poetic rain,
in small print,
fills the white sky page
...and leaves it pregnant with a frontier glowing brighter
than the prime moved space attuned to matter's birth
--all the freedom still, and more... continues growing heedless of the dark surround

and as a bright lotus conjures flight from murky soils--
heavy, sinking, rooted into nether darks--
you digest even drivel as you read, and leap beyond,
celebrating its inherent scope, tendril values spanning all potentiality;
i squint to see you silhouetted there: silent poet flying in between the signs,
to re-sign brilliance on that plane,
and voice the silence intertwining muse and verbal ruse

producing in an everpresent rain the giving-rise to words,
the meaning prior and pretend, and signaled apprehension past intent:
deluge inspiration in the rents of earth, carry dust into the rainbow clouds, and see the shaking world alight in lovingkindness without end

speaking now in arts reversed,
in playing poems and writing at a pitch to sweeten tongues with memories relived...
speaking in the ripple-visage looking back at skys beneath a surface weight we bear,
and shed in holding breath in waves, and squinting tight
the urge to love a universes' birth, conceive
the poem that generates progenesis of stellar forms
each...day
words to twist the vital helix of all oneness beings into being fair
chiasmi of the night alive to sing expanse, to sing alive galactic seas alight
into the pan-flute of the gods re-tuned to shakuhachi tones,
tabla moans and pops of ancient memories reborn
make verbal love within raags beloved rivers smooth at sitar drone
... within the theater your poetic home enfolds

Blinded by love,* can a lotus grow?
through this, beyond chance, to realize...kinship with a chameleon?
with an ant in unexplored territory?
mysteries hiding
revealing deeper mysteries, the hues of Kerala regrown
unknown cloud of "known"-unknown rising...
unknown cloud of possible-knowns to be...
being past, unknown cloud to wash the earth...
allowing all other clouds, dharma-megha cloud returning to that ocean..
--what limits of versatility attain here in my underwater tears?

we can be A dog and a cat transfixed by a sun set
lizards versus spiders crawling for our meals
the dance and dancer one
and we can tend the gardens all our lovers left
or tend the Goddess Night in daring shadow walks with her to inner, spiraled light
that inner vined garden of her truth forever singing you are me
tat twam asi in hues dark maidenhood restrokes
euphoric agony contains a clue
where negatives dream each other through and through
in a subtle exchange self with self before a mirror that eats all reflections









*)O(

From citron-bower be her bed,
cut from branch of tree a-flower,
fashioned for her maidenhead.

From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,
cut the width of board and lathe,
carve the feet from myrtle-wood.

Let the palings of her bed
be quince and box-wood overlaid
with the scented bark of yew.

That all the wood in blossoming,
may calm her heart and cool her blood,
for losing of her maidenhood.

grabbing her by throat hair he holds gun barrel to right eye with free hand she edges fingers into boot pulls dagger plunges it into his heart

i didn’t mean to do that i meant to do this

i’m trying to figure out how other people deal with disappointment of old age i guess they arrive at some settlement some settlement that eludes me

very few figure out meaning of their lives until it’s too late then become detectives trying to figure out whys if you wake up tomorrow you’ve got a shot at new day no one in this world knows what might happen

i believe people can do change maybe not their nature but spiritually emotionally intellectually psychologically i recognize change within myself i did could now never commit acts different from who i was more scared sensitive hopeful pure honest longing for love probably i sound corny all i want is mutual love adoration in way it was easier when i was thoughtless i got ***** i don’t know

poet must face every conceivable fear terror no matter how despairing risk walking away from table without chips

there are good people and bad people sometimes good people make bad mistakes sometimes bad people make smart choices

for decades he lived knowing no one valued him except his family collecting his paintings reading his works praising his efforts his entire career an inside job

her graying disheveled hair muddy smudged apron raw arthritic fingers she cooks meal washes dishes a million trillion dishes thankless life mom what’s for dinner

some people see it all coming plan invest i never saw any of it coming i never imagined

the sickly smell of grandpa’s farts lingers in room nauseating family

he held shivering abandoned puppy in arms she whimpered repeatedly he swore in that moment to protect her stood by his promise until he buried her

wild wolf chases him growling snapping nipping at ankles tearing jeans biting drawing blood he runs

pitiable old men everyone knows old men are impotent jokes with no pack to punch just harmless peevish impediments what good are they what purpose do they serve get the ******-freaking out of the road old man

riotous advancing mob overcome military police

sharing yoga class old man attending his skin thin as parchment bled i cleaned his blood from mat every class until he died

after puncturing her maidenhood reaching ****** he strokes head of 8 year old daughter good girl good girl daddy is so proud

skin him alive skin him alive little girl asks what’s different about poetry from standard writing grandpa answers i have no answers

not possible yet happening gradually suddenly amidst bribes bargaining lies government collapses citizenry unleash in anarchy yearning for change

Mom’s fogginess i sense it beginning in myself possibly inherited will i become like Mom there’s no one looking out for me Mom i’m looking out for you

after 30 or 40 years life is over don’t believe what they tell you

when i’m dead what will they unearth in my personal effects writings paintings letters emails bookmarks internet visitations or gossip accusations from those still alive probably allege another selfish decadent fool squandered resources missed opportunities misses the mark

maybe in 5 years i will live in New York City London Paris Tokyo Tahiti  with beautiful wife who will spread her buns want me to **** her grab my ***** at least once a day

there is a star in north sky that shines i understand you looking away when pain gets too great please look into my eyes when throbbing subsides

don’t make it any harder than it has to be please find it in your heart to forgive me i am so sorry

yup i’ve got cash guns friends in Canada Mexico Netherlands France first let’s make a run for the border  then later think about a boat

oh yeah one last remark ******* haters bigots greedy ******* all you big city fat cats small town big fish fearful suburban housewives over-cautious grannies gangsters politicians real-estate lawyers moneylenders fraudulent priests ******* all you movie actor phony smile celebrities cliché skinny jean cowboy boot rock stars all you left-wing right-wing tea-party outer-space inner-space freaks ******* i can’t don’t know how to explain myself ******* all

I hate the dreadful sight of the moonlight,
and wish that it could soon fade away into sunlight.
'Tis all but too coherent-far too lovely and too bright;
such a flaw indeed, to my mood and my womanly night.

Unlike the whole silence of the morn;
Whenst no'ne shall speak but the comely red thorn.
Whose soul is far too genuine-and one too like thee,
Clumsy but witty as thou strolled startlingly by me.

Ah, thee, whom I once loved, and now still do,
Whose love I cannot resist, neither can subdue;
But to whose charm I know I must desist,
For neither shall I be thy snow; nor ever, thy mist.

Ah, as not even abruptly in thy mind,
I snare thy conscience nor make thee blind.
Forever and ever to her thou choose to be bound,
Even when this world remains loud, but emits no sound.

And to her, her feeble soul thou art committed,
Into whose fingers art thy varied souls submitted.
And thy palms, both palms entwined whilst walking hand in hand,
Making herself proud, of claiming such a heart-of a perfect man.

But not to me, I-who thou detained too perfectly,
and turned to when all proved to thee, too beastly.
I, who shall forever be a distant friend,
I, who hath no right to thee, nor thy sweaty bare hands.

And not to me; I, who love thee all the greater,
I whose love for thee is but much sincerer, and cleverer.
I, whose passion for thee is too genuine, and tenderer;
Ah, but which to thy senses, might never even matter.

I, who love thee like I love the summer;
I, whom to thee a mere sanguine poet and a cold writer.
Ah, thee, but do thou know not-that my poems are alive?
They speak of my feelings, they speak of my noble life.

I, who love thee as deeply as I love my poetry;
I, who secretly wish thou could only be with me.
I, who shall love thee still-in my maidenhood and later wifery,
But whom to thee sadly nobody; and clearly no more-
Than a bewitching fellow, and on Sundays, a thoughtful young lady.

Ah, my soul is but crossed by this uncivil noise,
Noise in the night, noise that possesses even no voice;
Noise that hath no desirous wishes, and gravely no bliss;
Noise that is born not, out of a deep, passionate secret kiss.

Silence, oh thee; all-too-unmighty voice!
For thou only trouble the mind,
with an unconsciousness that make me blind;
within a joy my soul cannot retrieve, much less rejoice.

Angry, angry am I-with all these burdens of jealousy,
Ah, besotted I am, with those galleries of envy,
And their echoing portraits and songs of undefined melody-
Full of sorrow; and bloodied fits-of uneventful tragedy.

Hungry, hungry then is my soul-for love,
Which hath never come, nor ever seemed enough.
I am deterred, unlike those free giggling starlights above;
From joying in affection, from rubbing myself against love.

So gross, gross is how my blood-looks like;
Bereft of its breath, unloved by its might.
And its impure conscience that now only troubles the light;
Provoking my innocence, torturing my fair sight.

I hate the dreadful sight of the moonlight,
and wish that it soon fade away into sunlight.
I better hope that morn come daintily earlier;
whenst spring comes back into view and so turns everything, lovelier.

And t'is hope, hope for thee shall spring again;
As I shall pray before yon vase of sweet lavender
Which stays still-and loyally to the windowsill, unbent;
Even when it shrieks gallantly, and makes all not by any, tender.

For morn shall refine those current tides of summer,
so that the lake shall blow again-and grow stronger;
And as it does, my love for thee shall return, and be better,
For t'is time it shall bloom; like words that I write, and thou decipher.

And all this noise shall fall into poetry;
Which every day grows statelier and comelier.
For as we kiss, only thy eyes that shall speak onto me;
That our love is true, and shall remain so, forever.

“poetry choose you for us to sheaf through and find love among your words” (Pradip)

did you think that I forgot your message,
which is more than mere message, more a significant missive,
****** upon my shoulders, again, even more, a mission,
an owner’s responsibility that I choose to herein bare,
but a charge, too onerous, too awesome, to willingly bear

what skilled knowledge of this in my possess is narrow based,
more gained by loss or absence, or even conspicuous struggle,
than any vast success, thus, to be viewed with skepticism,
rather than any glory gained through a vanquisher’s scepter

more and better have essayed and assayed the
requisite sheafs that may give forth results useful to yourself,
this itinerant investigator’s ramblings are not to be deemed trustworthy or investable

that poetry hath chosen me, if correct, woe-betide me
this be more curse than blessing, for the secrecy of love
yields not its clear and present insights to my declining sight

the sheafs of which you speak so numerous
that a whole lifetime such engaged could not dent its
maidenhood and here do I both confess, here I do plead guilty
to trying and to failing, and in the confines of words,
honestly advance to all the proposition that I know nothing

to recognize and diagnose the symptoms almost too easy,
thus I designated myself foolishly as onlylovepoetry,
but recognition does not yield easy the cure of real cognition

nearing midnight and it is easier to pen than to sleep,
even a dreamless sleep, the great restorative,
make not the pen mightier than the wounds love inflicts;
both my scars and my many smooth, unused unpierced skin patches
speak only of the abscesses of true trials and
the too long absences of emotions that make
life unbearable, bearable and the happy exhaustion of near misses,
the try in try, try again

finding love in words a fool’s errand, though words offer us
seduction and definitions to our errant emotions, words
are just words and by definition, a hallmark of failure,
a precursor to cursing failings

only this I know, that to make love occur, do not hope to
stumble into it, or to find or mine its riches, for it requires of you,
both somber preparation and wild optimism,
and this contradiction controversy so inherently embedded,
will provoke more pain infusions and more poetry in
a human chain that came from the smithy new and yet, nearly broken

pay attention to thy surroundings and thy attitude and altitude
love is above ground though deep buried, the mystery scent
so faint it missed by most, myself a chief of mistaken mistook

meanwhile the pile of sheaves grows deeper and despairing

what I thought I knew I mistook and what I thought I felt,
well, let it suffice to say love can n’ere be found in thought
but lives in deed and actions and happy disbelief

put down the pen, gown thyself in coats of many riotous colors,
banish ‘never’ and ‘hope’ from thy lexicon, and begin with a smile always a smile as you walk the streets as if to say
open open says me, open sesame and let the
good works begin, for having found your captains of the muses,
your Calliope, your rosebud, lucky you,
you will need not write another word


11:37pm  January 14

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?
None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed
Which a soul’s sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death’s timely knell
Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel
Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves
Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night ***** them down, the garbage of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,
Were God’s desire at noon. And as their hair
And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit
To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife,
The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

In melancholy moonless Acheron,
Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day
Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun
Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May
Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,
Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

There by a dim and dark Lethaean well
Young Charmides was lying; wearily
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,
And with its little rifled treasury
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,

When as he gazed into the watery glass
And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned
His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass
Across the mirror, and a little hand
Stole into his, and warm lips timidly
Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a
sigh.

Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,
And ever nigher still their faces came,
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw
Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,
And longing arms around her neck he cast,
And felt her throbbing *****, and his breath came hot and fast,

And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,
And all her maidenhood was his to slay,
And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss
Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay
To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.

Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid!

Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet

In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.

Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn
The flames’ red wings soar upward duskily.
This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead
That sparkled so the day I saw it first,
And darkened slowly after.  I am she
Who loves all beauty—yet I wither it.
Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath—
Forever since my maidenhood to sow
Sorrow and blood about me?  Lo, they keep
Their bitter care above me even now.
It was the gods who led me to this lair,
That tho’ the burning winds should make me weak,
They should not ****** the life from out my lips.
Olympus let the other women die;
They shall be quiet when the day is done
And have no care to-morrow.  Yet for me
There is no rest.  The gods are not so kind
To her made half immortal like themselves.
It is to you I owe the cruel gift,
Leda, my mother, and the Swan, my sire,
To you the beauty and to you the bale;
For never woman born of man and maid
Had wrought such havoc on the earth as I,
Or troubled heaven with a sea of flame
That climbed to touch the silent whirling stars
And blotted out their brightness ere the dawn.
Have I not made the world to weep enough?
Give death to me.  Yet life is more than death;
How could I leave the sound of singing winds,
The strong sweet scent that breathes from off the sea,
Or shut my eyes forever to the spring?
I will not give the grave my hands to hold,
My shining hair to light oblivion.
Have those who wander through the ways of death,
The still wan fields Elysian, any love
To lift their ******* with longing, any lips
To thirst against the quiver of a kiss?
Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again,
To make the people love, who hate me now.
My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry
Against the fate that made men love my mouth
And left their spirits all too deaf to hear
The little songs that echoed through my soul.
I have no anger now.  The dreams are done;
Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see
Aught but my body’s fairness, till the end,
In all the islands set in all the seas,
And all the lands that lie beneath the sun,
Till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep,
Men’s lives shall waste with longing after me,
For I shall be the sum of their desire,
The whole of beauty, never seen again.
And they shall stretch their arms and starting, wake
With “Helen!” on their lips, and in their eyes
The vision of me.  Always I shall be
Limned on the darkness like a shaft of light
That glimmers and is gone.  They shall behold
Each one his dream that fashions me anew;—
With hair like lakes that glint beneath the stars
Dark as sweet midnight, or with hair aglow
Like burnished gold that still retains the fire.
Yea, I shall haunt until the dusk of time
The heavy eyelids filled with fleeting dreams.

I wait for one who comes with sword to slay—
The king I wronged who searches for me now;
And yet he shall not slay me.  I shall stand
With lifted head and look within his eyes,
Baring my breast to him and to the sun.
He shall not have the power to stain with blood
That whiteness—for the thirsty sword shall fall
And he shall cry and catch me in his arms,
Bearing me back to Sparta on his breast.
Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again!

One writes, that "Other friends remain,"
That "Loss is common to the race"--
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more.
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son,
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,--while thy head is bow'd,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought
At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;

Expecting still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
With wishes, thinking, "here to-day,"
Or "here to-morrow will he come."

O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
That sitteth ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waiteth for thy love!

For now her father's chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;
And thinking "this will please him best,"
She takes a riband or a rose;

For he will see them on to-night;
And with the thought her colour burns;
And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;

And, even when she turn'd, the curse
Had fallen, and her future Lord
Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,
Or ****'d in falling from his horse.

O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.

Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to draw me unaware—
Take me, for I love you more
Than I ever loved before.

And since the body’s maidenhood
Alone were neither rare nor good
Unless with it I gave to you
A spirit still untrammeled, too,
Take my dreams and take my mind
That were masterless as wind;
And “Master!” I shall say to you
Since you never asked me to.

the songs will remember you
as the ****** huntress
what the songs forget is that you were so much more

protector of young girls with their heads in the clouds
and hope in their eyes,
daughter of wolves and thunder

you were stripped bare and
the only thing that marked you
as important, was the name of your father

the only thing that they remembered
was the state of your maidenhood
no one warned you how their eyes would linger

and darken in lust,
untouchable, forbidden fruit
because that’s all they thought you were worth

you were three years old
when you refused to be reduced
to a state of being

you were three years old
when you refused to let
any man take what was yours

you were three years old
when you decided
you were to rule the mountains

you proved them wrong

One writes, that 'Other friends remain,'
  That 'Loss is common to the race'--
  And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
  My own less bitter, rather more:
  Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
  Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
  A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save
  Thy sailor,--while thy head is bow'd,
  His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought
  At that last hour to please him well;
  Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;

Expecting still his advent home;
  And ever met him on his way
  With wishes, thinking, 'here to-day,'
Or 'here to-morrow will he come.'

O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
  That sittest ranging golden hair;
  And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!

For now her father's chimney glows
  In expectation of a guest;
  And thinking 'this will please him best,'
She takes a riband or a rose;

For he will see them on to-night;
  And with the thought her colour burns;
  And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;

And, even when she turn'd, the curse
  Had fallen, and her future Lord
  Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,
Or ****'d in falling from his horse.

O what to her shall be the end?
  And what to me remains of good?
  To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.

medusa stands proud.
happy and proud and peace filled.
sisters in arms held for worship,
sisters in arms disappeared from grasp.

medusa stands small.
hurt and small and shame filled.
maidenhood stolen and high priestess to athena no more,
maidenhood stolen and cursed with protection.

medusa stands weary.
cold and weary and anger filled.
isolation has become her paradise of silence and stone,
isolation has become her graveyard of silence.

medusa stands tired.
worn and tired and sorrow filled.
awaiting the blow to her neck by perseus' sword,
awaiting the blow to end her suffering.

There she bends her fluid form, milky skin dazzled with sweat,
to pluck the golden fruit from the marble earth.
It eludes her grasp, un-bruised from its fall till
she turns her back to the finish line, to her maidenhood, to her victories
and faces all her determination to catch beautiful and artificial  
apple. Midas’ own greed pulls her into succumbing to the last of Milanion’s offerings and Aphrodite’s snare.
There in her crooked form, her robes still billowing from the momentum, sandals come undone so close to the finish line
Atalanta clutches, desperately, to win her freedom and the gleaming prize.

Yet the Gods know that only one can be won.
Aphrodite’s dove proceeds the victor as he barrels to the finish,
his wedding in sight.

His oaths were all crimson passion,
(Oh, fleeting, evanescent boy!)
But were simply passing fashion,
Discarded like some broken toy
Put on or off as he saw fit
(Not employed for some higher good:
The fondling of some harlot’s ***,
The plucking of some maidenhood.)
Prolifigate in the bedroom
In constancy, he remained chaste
Cast in the role of a bridegroom
The play’s ending he brought in haste
(I say this without levity;
Forever is but brevity.)

oh, lost childhood
innocent, sweet, and vain
i traded away my maidenhood
for a life of listless pain.

although reckless naievity
assuredly slipped away
so did the warm festivity
of existing without shame.

no longer can bedside fables
enchant a wonderous mind.
for i have traded my maidenhood
and left all past behind.

Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!



Sappho, fragment 156
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable place.



Sappho, fragment 47
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros harrows my heart:
wild winds whipping desolate mountains,
uprooting oaks.



Sappho, fragment 50
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros, the limb-shatterer,
rattles me,
an irresistible
constrictor.



Sappho, fragment 22
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That enticing girl's clinging dresses
leave me trembling, overcome by happiness,
as once, when I saw the Goddess in my prayers
eclipsing Cyprus.



Sappho, fragment 118
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre;
come, let my words
accompany your voice.



Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Pain
drains
me
to
the
last
drop
.



Sappho, fragment 90
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mother, how can I weave,
so overwhelmed by love?



Sappho, fragment 35
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
With my two small arms, how can I
hope to encircle the sky?

2.
With my two small arms, how can I
think to encircle the sky?



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Someone, somewhere
will remember us,
I swear!



Sappho, unnumbered fragment
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What cannot be swept
........................................ aside
must be wept.



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
the Pleiades are gone;
now half the night is spent,
yet here I lie, alone.



Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Gold does not rust,
yet my son becomes dust?



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!



Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
-"yes, let it last forever! -
as long as you sleep in my sight.



Sappho, fragment 34
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You are,
of all the unapproachable stars,
by far
the fairest,
the brightest―
possessing the Moon's splendor.



Sappho, fragment 34
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the Moon's splendor,
the stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.



Sappho, fragment 39
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're merely mortal women,
it's true;
the Goddesses have no rivals
but You.



Sappho, fragment 5
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We're eclipsed here by your presence―
you outshine all the ladies of Lydia
as the bright-haloed moon outsplendors the stars.



Sappho, fragment 31
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... at the sight of you,
words fail me...



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Leaving your heavenly summit,
I submit
to the mountain,
then plummet.



Sappho, fragment 129
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You forget me
or you love another more!
It's over.



Sappho, fragment 24
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... don't you remember, in days bygone...
how we, too, did such things, being young?



Sappho, fragment 16
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some say these are the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say―
the one I desire.

And this makes sense
because she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
―Helen―
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
set sail for distant Troy,
abandoning her celebrated husband,
leaving behind her parents and child!

Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or all their infantry parading in flashing armor.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm undecided.
My mind? Divided.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unsure as a babe new-born,
My mind is divided, torn.



Sappho, fragment 37
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I don't know what to do:
My mind is divided, two.



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the bride comes
let her train rejoice!



Sappho, fragment 90
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom,
was there ever a maid
so like a lovely heirloom?



Sappho, fragment 19
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anoint yourself
with the most exquisite perfume.



Sappho, fragment 120
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I'm no resenter;
I have a childlike heart...



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May your head rest
on the breast
of the tenderest guest.



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is my real desire for maidenhood?



Sappho, fragment 80
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Is there any synergy
in virginity?



Sappho, fragment 75
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dica! Do not enter the presence of Goddesses ungarlanded!
First weave sprigs of dill with those delicate hands, if you desire their favor!



Sappho, fragment 79
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I cherish extravagance,
intoxicated by Love's celestial splendor.



Sappho, fragment 79
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun's ecstatic brilliance.



Sappho, fragment 81
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Assemble now, Muses, leaving golden landscapes!



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' acceptance.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Look me in the face,
smile,
reveal your eyes' grace...



Sappho, fragment 4
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon shone, full
as the virgins ringed Love's altar...



Sappho, fragment 11
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You inflame me!



Sappho, fragment 11
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



You ignite and inflame me...
You melt me.



Sappho, fragment 12
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am an acolyte
of wile-weaving
Aphrodite.



Sappho, fragment 14
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eros
descends from heaven,
discarding his imperial purple mantle.



Sappho, fragment 35
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Although you are very dear to me
you must marry a younger filly:
for I'm by far too old for you,
and this old mare's just not that **** silly.



Sappho, after Anacreon
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once more I dive into this fathomless sea,
intoxicated by lust.



Sappho, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was the first ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon...
but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.



Sappho, fragment 3
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

To me that boy seems
blessed by the gods
because he sits beside you,
basking in your brilliant presence.

The sound of your voice roils my heart!
Your laughter? ―bright water, dislodging pebbles

in a chaotic vortex. You **** up my breath!
My heart bucks in my ribs. I can't breathe. I can't speak.

My ******* glow with intense heat;
desire's blush-inducing fires redden my flesh.
My ears seem hollow; they ring emptily.
My tongue is broken and cleaves to its roof.

I sweat profusely. I shiver.
Suddenly, I grow pale
and feel only a second short of dying.
And yet I must endure, somehow,

despite my poverty.



Sappho, fragment 93
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You're the sweetest apple reddening on the highest bough,
which the harvesters missed, or forgot―somehow―

or perhaps they just couldn't reach you, then or now.



Sappho, fragment 145
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Prometheus the Fire-Bearer
robbed the Gods of their power, and so
brought mankind and himself to woe...
must you repeat his error?



Sappho, fragment 159
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May I lead?
Will you follow?
Foolish man!

Ears so hollow,
minds so shallow,
never can!



Sappho, fragments 122 & 123
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice―
a sweeter liar
than the lyre,
more dearly sold
and bought, than gold.



Sappho, fragment 42
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

She wrapped herself then in
most delicate linen.



Sappho, fragment 70
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

That rustic girl bewitches your heart?
Hell, her most beguiling art's
hiking the hem of her dress
to ****** you with her ankles' nakedness!



Sappho, fragment 94
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Shepherds trample the larkspur
whose petals empurple the heath,
foreshadowing shepherds' grief.



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The softest pallors grace
her lovely face.



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I yearn for―I burn for―the one I desire!



Sappho, fragment 30
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidens, keeping vigil all night long,
go make a lovely song,
someday, out of desires you abide
for the violet-petalled bride.

Or better yet―arise, regale!
Go entice the eligible bachelors
so that we shocked elders
can sleep less than love-plagued nightingales!



Sappho, fragment 121
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A tender maiden plucking flowers
persuades the knave
to heroically brave
the world's untender hours.



Sappho, fragment 68
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady,
soon you'll lie dead, disregarded;
then imagine how quickly your reputation fades...
you who never gathered the roses of Pieria
must assume your place among the obscure,
uncelebrated shades.



Sappho, fragment 137
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Death is evil;
the Gods all agree;
for, had death been good,
the Gods would be mortal
like me.



Sappho, fragment 43
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, dear ones,
let us cease our singing:
morning dawns.



Sappho, fragment 14
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Today
may
buffeting winds bear
my distress and care
away.



Sappho, fragment 15
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Just now I was called,
enthralled,
by the golden-sandalled
dawn...



Sappho, fragment 69
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Into the soft arms of the girl I once spurned,
I gladly returned.

2.
Into the warm arms of the girl I once spurned,
I gladly returned.



Sappho, fragment 29
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since my paps are dry and my barren womb rests,
let me praise lively girls with violet-sweet *******.



Sappho, fragment 1
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Beautiful swift sparrows
rising on whirring wings
flee the dark earth for the sun-bright air...



Sappho, fragment 58
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The girls of the ripening maidenhead wore garlands.



Sappho, fragment 94 & 98
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Listen, my dear;
by the Goddess I swear
that I, too,
(like you)
had to renounce my false frigidity
and surrender my virginity.
My wedding night was not so bad;
you too have nothing to fear, so be glad!
(But then why do I still sometimes think with dread
of my lost maidenhead?)



Sappho, fragment 100
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Bridegroom, rest
on the tender breast
of the maid you love best.



Sappho, fragment 103
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Maidenhead! Maidenhead!
So swiftly departed!
Why have you left us
forever brokenhearted?



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch, after Sappho and Tennyson

I sip the cup of costly death;
I lose my color; I catch my breath
whenever I contemplate your presence,
or absence.



Sappho, fragment 2
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I compete with that ****** man
who fancies himself one of the gods,
impressing you with his "eloquence, "
when just the thought of sitting in your radiant presence,
of hearing your lovely voice and lively laughter,
sets my heart hammering at my breast?
Hell, when I catch just a quick glimpse of you,
I'm left speechless, tongue-tied,
and immediately a blush like a delicate flame reddens my skin.
Then my vision dims with tears,
my ears ring,
I sweat profusely,
and every muscle in my body trembles.
When the blood finally settles,
I grow paler than summer grass,
till in my exhausted madness,
I'm as limp as the dead.
And yet I must risk all, being bereft without you...



Sappho, fragments 73 & 74
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

They have been very generous with me,
the violet-strewing Muses;
thanks to their gifts
I have become famous.



Sappho, fragment 3
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stars ringing the lovely moon
pale to insignificance
when she illuminates the earth
with her magnificence.



Sappho, fragment 49
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You have returned!
You did well to not depart
because I pined for you.
Now you have re-lit the torch
I bear for you in my heart,
this flare of Love.
I bless you and bless you and bless you
because we're no longer apart.



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday,
you came to my house
to sing for me.

Today,
I come to you
to return the favor.

Talk to me. Do.
Sweet talk,
I love the flavor!

Please send away your maids
and let us share a private heaven-
haven.



Sappho, fragment 19
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.



Sappho, fragment 20
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

... shot through
with innumerable hues...



Sappho, fragment 38
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I flutter
after you
like a chick after its mother...



Sappho, fragment 30
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Stay!
I will lay
out a cushion for you
with plushest pillows...



Sappho, fragment 50
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My body descends
and my comfort depends
on your welcoming cushions!



Sappho, fragment 133
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Of all the stars the fairest,
Hesperus,
Lead the maiden straight to the bridegroom's bed,
honoring Hera, the goddess of marriage.



Sappho, fragment 134
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Selene came to Endymion in the cave,
made love to him as he slept,
then crept away before the sun could prove
its light and warmth the more adept.



Sappho, fragment 4
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

"Honestly, I just want to die! "
So she said,
crying heartfelt tears,
inconsolably sad
to leave me.

And she said,
"How deeply we have loved,
we two,
Sappho!
Oh,
I really don't want to go! "

I answered her thus:
"Go, and be happy,
remembering me,
for you know how much I cared for you.
And if you don't remember,
please let me remind you
of all the lovely emotions we felt
as with many wreathes of violets,
roses and crocuses
you sat beside me
adorning your delicate neck.

Once garlands had been fashioned of many woven flowers,
with much expensive myrrh
we anointed our bodies like royalty
on soft couches,
then your tender caresses
fulfilled your desire..."



Sappho's Rose
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose is...
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No droning bee,
nor even the bearer of honey
for me!


Sappho, fragment 113
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Neither the honey
nor the bee
for me!



Sappho, fragment 52
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon has long since set;
The Pleiades are gone;
Now half the night is spent,
Yet here I lie ... alone.



Sappho, fragment 2 (Lobel-Page 2 / Voigt 2)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Come, Cypris, from Crete
to meet me at this holy temple
where a lovely grove of apple awaits our presence
bowering altars
  fuming with frankincense.

Here brisk waters babble beneath apple branches,
the grounds are overshadowed by roses,
and through the flickering leaves
  enchantments shimmer.

Here the horses will nibble flowers
as we gorge on apples
and the breezes blow
  honey-sweet with nectar ...

Here, Cypris, we will gather up garlands,
pour the nectar gracefully into golden cups
and with gladness
  commence our festivities.


Sappho, fragment 58 (Lobel-Page 58)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Virgins, be zealous for the violet-scented Muses' lovely gifts
and those of the melodious lyre ...
but my once-supple skin sags now;
my arthritic bones creak;
my ravenblack hair's turned white;
my lighthearted heart's grown heavy;
my knees buckle;
my feet, once fleet as fawns, fail the dance.
I often bemoan my fate ... but what's the use?
Not to grow old is, of course, not an option.

I am reminded of Tithonus, adored by Dawn with her arms full of roses,
who, overwhelmed by love, carried him off beyond death's dark dominion.
Handsome for a day, but soon withered with age,
he became an object of pity to his ageless wife.



Sappho, fragment 132 (Lobel-Page 132)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I have a delightful daughter
fairer than the fairest flowers, Cleis,
whom I cherish more than all Lydia and lovely ******.

2.
I have a lovely daughter
with a face like the fairest flowers,
my beloved Cleis …

It bears noting that Sappho mentions her daughter and brothers, but not her husband. We do not know if this means she was unmarried, because so many of her verses have been lost.



Sappho, fragment 131 (Lobel-Page 131)
loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
You reject me, Attis,
as if you find me distasteful,
flitting off to Andromeda ...

2.
Attis, you forsake me
and flit off to Andromeda ...



Sappho, fragment 140 (Lobel-Page 140)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He is dying, Cytherea, the delicate Adonis.
What shall we lovers do?
Rip off your clothes, bare your ******* and abuse them!



Sappho, fragment 36
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Vain woman, foolish thing!
Do you base your worth on a ring?


Sappho, fragment 130
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

May the gods prolong the night
—yes, let it last forever!—
as long as you sleep in my sight.



... a sweet-voiced maiden ...
—Sappho, fragment 153, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have the most childlike heart ...
—Sappho, fragment 120, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There was no dance,
no sacred dalliance,
from which we were absent.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s ecstatic brilliance.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the sensual
as I love the sun’s splendor.
—Sappho, fragment 9, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You anointed yourself
with most exquisite perfume.
—Sappho, fragment 19, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Awed by the moon’s splendor,
stars covered their undistinguished faces.
Even so, we.
—Sappho, fragment 34, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Sappho, fragment 138, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
Darling, let me see your face;
unleash your eyes' grace.

2.
Turn to me, favor me
with your eyes' indulgence.

3.
Look me in the face,
           smile,
reveal your eyes' grace ...

4.
Turn to me,
favor me
with your eyes’ indulgence

Those I most charm
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Those I charm the most
do me the most harm.
—Sappho, fragment 12, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Midnight.
The hours drone on
as I moan here, alone.
—Sappho, fragment 52, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Once again I dive into this fathomless ocean,
intoxicated by lust.
—Sappho, after Anacreon, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Did this epigram perhaps inspire the legend that Sappho leapt into the sea to her doom, over her despair for her love for the ferryman Phaon? See the following poem ...

The Legend of Sappho and Phaon, after Menander
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Some say Sappho was an ardent maiden
goaded by wild emotion
to fling herself from the white-frothed rocks of Leukas
into this raging ocean
for love of Phaon ...

but others reject that premise
and say it was Aphrodite, for love of Adonis.

In Menander's play The Leukadia he refers to a legend that Sappho flung herself from the White Rock of Leukas in pursuit of Phaon. We owe the preservation of those verses to Strabo, who cited them. Phaon appears in works by Ovid, Lucian and Aelian. He is also mentioned by Plautus in Miles Gloriosus as being one of only two men in the whole world, who "ever had the luck to be so passionately loved by a woman."

Sappho, fragment 24, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1a.
Dear, don't you remember how, in days long gone,
we did such things, being young?

1b.
Dear, don't you remember, in days long gone,
how we did such things, being young?

2.
Don't you remember, in days bygone,
how we did such things, being young?

3.
Remember? In our youth
we too did such reckless things.

Sappho, fragment 154, loose translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch

1.
The moon rose and we women
thronged it like an altar.

2.
Maidens throng
at the altar of Love
all night long.


Even as their hearts froze,
their feathers molted.
—Sappho, fragment 42, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your voice beguiles me.
Your laughter lifts my heart’s wings.
If I listen to you, even for a moment, I am left speechless.
—Sappho, fragment 31, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Sappho, ******, Greek, translation, epigram, epigrams, love, ***, desire, passion, lust

I'd rather die by the hands of an assassin
using a rusty arrow or a dull blade
than allow you
to take my maidenhood.

Over the hills of Lough,
The boys go now
With their pockets

Full of promises;
And their heels kicking
The dust from their feet,

Like fathers pushing away
The years shown in their greying hair.
Listen. The voices carry.

The boys have shouldered
The labours of centuries;
And now over the hills of Lough

They go now,
With their caps
On their heads

And over the brow;
Leaving the girls
To their maidenhood

And the old men
Who once climbed
The hills, but soon

Came back again.

I had went to visit some friends
some acquaintances
these people i used to know
I was a ghost in my hometown,
where no one used my given name.
they brought me in through a screen door and
sat me down in the kitchen.
their voices were like underwater sounds
they told me to be still while he said hello.
I looked down a flight of basement stairs
where bathed in a blue light like Chopin’s  no. 19 in E minor
sat a tiger burning bright.
up the stairs it bounded forth in muted strides
to the floor it pinned me under protest
in cemetery stillness it said hello.
the kitchen was an autoclave
I never asked for help.

my hometown calls to me in my sleep
like an indian death wail on a buffalo robe
so my eyes sink back into the firmament.
bathing in the predawn light
my bones are an old horse I ride,
I score one for the body then I get onto a plane
then I score one for the body and I get onto a plane
then i score one for the body as it lays dying without complaint.
kneeling before the Holy Cross by the roadside
I take note of really just how much room there is on the bed beside me
strange bedfellows are I and the space I’ve been given.
there is a queen sized outer darkness within my twin sized
gestures of self control.
the dusk is day now and the moon is the sun
and my hometown calls to me like Jericho’s Trumpet
sounding from inside the Pale.

in my hometown I am a pilgrim
I saunter towards the seaboard
where the docks hold greek columns that soar into the air
like the elephant’s legs in Salvador Dali’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony”.
nostalgia burns my throat like acids and bases
and the columns lead up to nowhere and this place isn’t
how i remember it beyond the Pale.
limping with thin soles
dragging a dull hypothalamus like a dead mule chained to my ankle
we would sit and watch our forefathers stare at the static on the TV
from their arm chairs in the dark.
we would offer them coffee and ask how their day was and they
would tell us that sometimes they feel like a lone alley cat.
It’s like my buddy's roommate when I would go to visit; always alone inside his room.
sometimes I would see him around town and say hello and notice his face and
see that he was still alone inside his room.

well, I have skin in the game and I have a reputation
and i’m attached to my non-attachment.
sometimes a subtle brand of disgust creeps in to replace my avarice
and sometimes I starve to death holding a long handled spoon
seated at Caligula’s table.
sometimes i can’t tell their maidenhood from their madness
so i hoard one for the body.
sometimes i remember the way bees will talk to each other by dancing
and how old men will tell you they’re afraid to die.
Sometimes I hand a *** a 20 and weep as I watch him fold it
into an origami crane.

while I was in town I looked up my former landlord
I held a fondness for the times when they didn’t use my given name.
I wanted to see my old room and I had kept a raven back then and
he assured me it was still around.
the room was now and attic and was much bigger than I had held it
in my memory, vast almost.
I ask the dust as it was thick upon the floor boards and something
felt abandoned in the air.
the roof was in disrepair and one whole side was nearly completely gone.
tranquil ribbons of cirrus clouds stood in the sky through the roof like
a child’s drawing.
“Is it like you remember?”, he asked.
“Way over in the corner there was a couch my brother would sometimes sit in” I replied.
I asked after my raven and he pointed to the part of the roof that still was.
from the shadows came a bird song like an irish low whistle from above the Pale.
“That doesn’t sound like him”, I said (more to myself than to my host),
“that’s an owl or something.”

What's it, what's it that makes me smile-
when I think of thee for a while?
Let t'is sunshine, balmy and dry-
warm our hearts as it walks by.

O but today my heart gladdened-
yet as we stared my cheeks reddened!
Upon my journeys down, downstairs-
'midst th' morning and evening airs.

Thy handsome face came into view,
made my feelings dance like white dew.
Th' moment thou showed me that grin-
I knew that my heart thou would win.

Thy presence was but a rhythm,
th' best that my heart could employ.
One a tempest could not destroy-
one destiny could not fathom.

Thy being is th' love I wish,
in my wild dreams and fantasies!
Ah! and thy soul just what I outta please;
a fate my maidenhood shan't miss.

I'll wait for my victorious night-
when no-one else is within sight.
Thy arms opened awide for me;
as I swing outside to find thee.

And I but hope later that day;
thou wilt no longer leave and stay.
To own th' lips I'm fated to kiss,
and wed our love in sacred bliss.

April is the cruelest month, so some poet said,
Likely vexed to the breaking point by its coquettish nature,
Alternately promising and withdrawing
Sweetness of the warm sun, rustling green blankets of leaves,
The flirtatious, intoxicating perfume
Of the violet and lily of the valley.
For all its coy fluttering of eyelids,
April may delay but never denies,
Yielding its lover’s bounty and then some
To suitors ardent and otherwise.
Its forerunner of two moons prior promises no such delights,
No flora-and-fauna maidenhood as recompense for devotion;
It is the time of purification, of the purge,
A time where light is at a premium,
Often coveted but rarely apprehended, its fleeting manifestations Matters of obfuscation as opposed to illumination,
Soon to be supplanted by fierce meteorological harpies
Short on subtlety but long on effectiveness,
Carrying away those not equipped to resist its peculiar charms
(The too-early runt calf, the aged and nearly-blind collie
Trotting to an unfamiliar field or wood lot,
The newly-solo grandparent acquiescing to the song of the abyss),
The unfortunates consigned to some crypt
Or undisturbed corner of barn or basement,
Proper farewells set aside for some indeterminate time
When it is feasible to block out the knowledge
That the springtime is promised to no man or beast,
Especially at such an interval
Where so little seems to separate one from the other.

Above the Arctic Circle, where the Laplanders dwell,
A place where sunlight never melts the tundra’s icy shell
And Beelzebub himself eschews, strongly preferring Hell.
Yet evil is no stranger here
Due to a beast the natives fear:
The dragon of Parikkala.

The provincial church was burgled, a most confounding case
Church poor boxes relieved of gold and scattered ‘round the place
The cleric who resided there was gone without a trace.
‘Twas nothing the good priest would do
The evidence all pointed to
The dragon of Parikkala.

The sheriff was a bruiser by the name Jyl Purrakut
Rumored to be the owner of a house of ill repute
Such assertions (quite naturally) he’d angrily dispute:
Not down to me, he’d all but hiss,
You know who is to blame for this
The dragon of Parikkala.

Banker Aric Toskala charged outlandish interest rates,
And those who did not pay on time met most unhappy fates,
Tossed rudely from their homes and forced to sleep on sewer grates
Confronted, Aric explained why
It seems his brain was addled by
The dragon of Parikkala.

Young Jana Makkarainen, from a fine family in town
Was victimized unknowingly, her life turned upside-down
Resulting in a swelling underneath her simple gown.
My maidenhood, the girl would cry
Was cruelly stolen from me by
The dragon of Parikkala.

In this cold, humble northern burgh, sin is the soup du jour
Although the town folk, one and all, are wholly chaste and pure
And so a host of gloomy fates they stoically endure
Yet they are blameless in the least
The fault lies wholly with the beast
The dragon of Parikkala.

ACT VI

EXEUNT  Hafez the Turk with Borbognoni.
Eratocles to Lesbia as he faces the other occupants:

    'Mad passengers on Life's untimely main
With boarding pass, who signal to the plane,
Such sad and paltry virtue as you're due
Would yet an airport's tower misconstrue;
That pilots and their air-controllers may
In congress, or in *******, delay
(Desirous yet of wings they fain possess)
To mount the air—with each bright stewardess
Their forms and then their maidenhood address . . .  

     Out, Out.  Such trash ennobles none but thee;

    'For craft shall ever land as birds must fly—
Checked luggage fill the hold when drinks are served;
And whether prey or falcon take to sky,
The crew must make our passage well-deserved;
Though lightning rend the night all 'round th'plane
And flame, as to a spleen, thy fevered brain.
Perchance you hope the pilot to dissuade,
Whose path through trackless wastes your flight directs.
Your shamming virtue tarnishes your blade
And though your flight be cut, it fain connects
That shining port of entry that you seek
Where love's most noble strength is rendered weak.'  

   'Away. Methinks the cabin crew I hear:     
      Fair Lesbia—have you my passport ?'