I weep for Adonais—he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!”

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais—he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend;—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania!—He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished—
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal.—Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!—
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law
Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

O, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,
The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,—
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,
“Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.”
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!
She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem
A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,
That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,
And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came… Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day;
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain she pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,
Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,
For whom should she have waked the sullen year?
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both
Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere
Amid the faint companions of their youth,
With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

Thy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year;
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season’s bier;
The amorous birds now pair in every brake,
And build their mossy homes in field and brere;
And the green lizard, and the golden snake,
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean
A quickening life from the Earth’s heart has burst
As it has ever done, with change and motion,
From the great morning of the world when first
God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed,
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;
All baser things pant with life’s sacred thirst;
Diffuse themselves; and spend in love’s delight
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender,
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath
By sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,
But for our grief, as if it had not been,
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!
Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene
The actors or spectators? Great and mean
Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!
“Wake thou,” cried Misery, “childless Mother, rise
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart’s core,
A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs.”
And all the Dreams that watched Urania’s eyes,
And all the Echoes whom their sister’s song
Had held in holy silence, cried: “Arise!”
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs
Our of the East, and follows wild and drear
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings,
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;
So saddened round her like an atmosphere
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

Our of her secret Paradise she sped,
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,
And human hearts, which to her aery tread
Yielding not, wounded the invisible
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell:
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,
Rent the soft Form they never could repel,
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,
Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath
Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.
“Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,
As silent lightning leaves the starless night!
Leave me not!” cried Urania: her distress
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.

“‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning brain
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,
With food of saddest memory kept alive,
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give
All that I am to be as thou now art!
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

“O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,
The monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.

“The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;
The obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead;
The vultures to the conqueror’s banner true
Who feed where Desolation first has fed,
And whose wings rain contagion;—how they fled,
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped
And smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

“The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then
Is gathered into death without a dawn,
And the immortal stars awake again;
So is it in the world of living men:
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.”

Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like Heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow; from her wilds Irene sent
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,
And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue.

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,
A phantom among men; companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray
With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift—
A Love in desolation masked;—a Power
Girt round with weakness;—it can scarce uplift
The weight of the superincumbent hour;
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,
A breaking billow;—even whilst we speak
Is it not broken? On the withering flower
The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest’s noonday dew,
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart
Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew
He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan
Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band
Who in another’s fate now wept his own,
As in the accents of an unknown land
He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned
The Stranger’s mien, and murmured: “Who art thou?”
He answered not, but with a sudden hand
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
Which was like Cain’s or Christ’s—oh! that it should be so!

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy heart heaving without a moan?
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,
The silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice.

Our Adonais has drunk poison—oh!
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown
Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?
The nameless worm would now itself disown:
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,
But what was howling in one breast alone,
Silent with expectation of the song,
Whose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!
Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!
But be thyself, and know thyself to be!
And ever at thy season be thou free
To spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow:
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now.

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
Far from these carrion kites that scream below;
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now—
Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow
Back to the burning fountain whence it came,
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow
Through time and change, unquenchably the same,
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—
He hath awakened from the dream of life—
’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife
Invulnerable nothings.—We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;
Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais.—Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air
Which like a mourning veil

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song.  Up led by thee
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering: with like safety guided down
Return me to my native element:
Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere;
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east: still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
Her son.  So fail not thou, who thee implores:
For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.
Say, Goddess, what ensued when Raphael,
The affable Arch-Angel, had forewarned
Adam, by dire example, to beware
Apostasy, by what befel in Heaven
To those apostates; lest the like befall
In Paradise to Adam or his race,
Charged not to touch the interdicted tree,
If they transgress, and slight that sole command,
So easily obeyed amid the choice
Of all tastes else to please their appetite,
Though wandering.  He, with his consorted Eve,
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought
So unimaginable, as hate in Heaven,
And war so near the peace of God in bliss,
With such confusion: but the evil, soon
Driven back, redounded as a flood on those
From whom it sprung; impossible to mix
With blessedness.  Whence Adam soon repealed
The doubts that in his heart arose: and now
Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know
What nearer might concern him, how this world
Of Heaven and Earth conspicuous first began;
When, and whereof created; for what cause;
What within Eden, or without, was done
Before his memory; as one whose drouth
Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream,
Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites,
Proceeded thus to ask his heavenly guest.
Great things, and full of wonder in our ears,
Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed,
Divine interpreter! by favour sent
Down from the empyrean, to forewarn
Us timely of what might else have been our loss,
Unknown, which human knowledge could not reach;
For which to the infinitely Good we owe
Immortal thanks, and his admonishment
Receive, with solemn purpose to observe
Immutably his sovran will, the end
Of what we are.  But since thou hast vouchsafed
Gently, for our instruction, to impart
Things above earthly thought, which yet concerned
Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemed,
Deign to descend now lower, and relate
What may no less perhaps avail us known,
How first began this Heaven which we behold
Distant so high, with moving fires adorned
Innumerable; and this which yields or fills
All space, the ambient air wide interfused
Embracing round this floried Earth; what cause
Moved the Creator, in his holy rest
Through all eternity, so late to build
In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon
Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest unfold
What we, not to explore the secrets ask
Of his eternal empire, but the more
To magnify his works, the more we know.
And the great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven,
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears,
And longer will delay to hear thee tell
His generation, and the rising birth
Of Nature from the unapparent Deep:
Or if the star of evening and the moon
Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring,
Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will watch;
Or we can bid his absence, till thy song
End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.
Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought:
And thus the Godlike Angel answered mild.
This also thy request, with caution asked,
Obtain; though to recount almighty works
What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice,
Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?
Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve
To glorify the Maker, and infer
Thee also happier, shall not be withheld
Thy hearing; such commission from above
I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain
To ask; nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not revealed, which the invisible King,
Only Omniscient, hath suppressed in night;
To none communicable in Earth or Heaven:
Enough is left besides to search and know.
But knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain;
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.
Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of Angels, than that star the stars among,)
Fell with his flaming legions through the deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.
At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought
All like himself rebellious, by whose aid
This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,
He trusted to have seised, and into fraud
Drew many, whom their place knows here no more:
Yet far the greater part have kept, I see,
Their station; Heaven, yet populous, retains
Number sufficient to possess her realms
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeries due, and solemn rites:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell,
Not here; till, by degrees of merit raised,
They open to themselves at length the way
Up hither, under long obedience tried;
And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One kingdom, joy and union without end.
Mean while inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heaven;
And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!
My overshadowing Spirit and Might with thee
I send along; ride forth, and bid the Deep
Within appointed bounds be Heaven and Earth;
Boundless the Deep, because I Am who fill
Infinitude, nor vacuous the space.
Though I, uncircumscribed myself, retire,
And put not forth my goodness, which is free
To act or not, Necessity and Chance
Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.
So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake
His Word, the Filial Godhead, gave effect.
Immediate are the acts of God, more swift
Than time or motion, but to human ears
Cannot without process of speech be told,
So told as earthly notion can receive.
Great triumph and rejoicing was in Heaven,
When such was heard declared the Almighty’s will;
Glory they sung to the Most High, good will
To future men, and in their dwellings peace;
Glory to Him, whose just avenging ire
Had driven out the ungodly from his sight
And the habitations of the just; to Him
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained
Good out of evil to create; instead
Of Spirits malign, a better race to bring
Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse
His good to worlds and ages infinite.
So sang the Hierarchies:  Mean while the Son
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones,
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them Spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord:  Heaven opened wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven’s highth, and with the center mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then the Omnifick Word; your discord end!
Nor staid; but, on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice:  Him all his train
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O World!
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth,
Matter unformed and void:  Darkness profound
Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black tartareous cold infernal dregs,
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like; the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And Earth self-balanced on her center hung.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith Light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while.  God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the Day, and darkness Night,
He named.  Thus was the first day even and morn:
Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birth-day of Heaven and Earth; with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they filled,
And touched their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
Again, God said,  Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters; and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round; partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing: for as earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule
Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And Heaven he named the Firmament:  So even
And morning chorus sung the second day.
The Earth was formed, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of Earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle; but, with warm
Prolifick humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said,
Be gathered now ye waters under Heaven
Into one place, and let dry land appear.
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters:  Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry:
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command impressed
On the swift floods:  As armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard; so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill;
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent errour wandering, found their way,
And on the washy oose deep channels wore;
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train.
The dry land, Earth; and the great receptacle
Of congregated waters, he called Seas:
And saw that it was good; and said, Let the Earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desart and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her *****, smelling sweet: and, these scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled in her field, and the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit:  Last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed
Their blossoms:  With high woods the hills were crowned;
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers: that Earth now
Seemed like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rained
Upon the Earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from the Earth a dewy mist
Went up, and watered all the ground, and each
Plant of the field; which, ere it was in the Earth,
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem:  God saw that it was good:
So even and morn recorded the third day.
Again the Almighty spake, Let there be lights
High in the expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night; and let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days, and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heaven,
To give light on the Earth; and it was so.
And God made two great lights, great for their use
To Man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of Heaven
To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide.  God saw,
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould: then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,
And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a field:
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed
In the sun’s orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light; firm to retain
Her gathered beams, great palace now of light.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning-planet gilds her horns;
By tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far rem

- - - there are the days when
i savor my isolation,
i savor my freedom.
in this state is when
Urania came forth
to lift my chin,
to lift my gaze
from finite walking-path
unto Eternity of existence.
She placated me, brought me
to surrender of my Self.
and i lay staring at the ceiling,
longing for a little rest knowing
i did this to myself, and
i don’t complain to you.
- - - there came a conclusion of
self-destruction as
the only thing to depend on.
and i destroy myself
through entertainment
while
fighting tooth and nail to survive.
- - - Sunday 5.30ante.
began Friday 9.30post,
Saturday 9.30post is twenty-four.
i am four short of thirty-six.
and my turbulent stomach awaits
the imbibement of a hard benzo –
(shorten’d word to be hip.
[also the reason i used an infinitive])
by this point i am deranged
and trace mildly. not just
a fancied flight alongside a reality
my mind deceives me of. not
just an insaned delirium
i perpetrate. maintain. sustain.

disdain.

space to insure emphasis,
- - - have i been outward too long.
i sweat naked in the snow thanking,
no Deity,
but instead handful of
multi-color’d, shaped, strength downers.
and i smell’d on death
perfume of flowers as
its figure look’d me over –
naked freezing wretch –
and extend’d claw with
rotting flesh no where
in pace with this vessel’s.
i began to blue, and the
shadow of my end
falter’d in my mind.
lungs, in impulse,
heaved air within themselves.
stretching frozen sternum.
- - - let’s take some math,
how about:
zn+1 = zn2 + c
i am patient,
please explain in detail.

My sweet water nymph
...earlier?!
You wished for me to arrive "earlier"?!
By your side be my life.
I carry your heart through realms of chaos.
Beg my pardon for the lapse in minutes..
Reliving your love can ****.

You are thy muse.
Enchanting and mischievous and empowering is your being.
Your aura bleeds ecstasy and grace.
Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania...
Collapsed in a single body.
What a body.

My sweet water nymph. . .

Carrying inspiration in those stems.
We can't help but bow to you.
Give me your ripened fruit of art.
You poor soul.

. . .my sweet water nymph

Installed in the Eclectic Parallel World of the invisible portal of Saint John the Evangelist, everything levitated in his sacred basaltic cavern in Katapausis, in the Patmos archipelago (Koumeterium Messolonghi, Chapter 16 / page 114. Editorial Palibrio-USA). They would find themselves in communion with the clan count, resembling being in their proper ectoplasm; conforming to the only part of masonry ruled to redirect them in the messianic workings of the ascension stages. Vernarth; he besieged in the conscious state of him having to adhere to the cavern, after having finished his labors by waiting three months. He risks being consumed by the myriads and conflagrations, retracting them in parapsychological clouded ways, which subsisted to consecrate themselves in the lavish places divided towards the horizon. The iridescence threatens the primary ultraviolet, lifting the carriage of Apollo Citar, a neighbor of the astronomical cave sketch of the Muse Urania. A lame nuance escapes and dissolves from his mathematical prayer, capturing the spiritual intensity that inspired Saint John to build the temple near his cave of the Apocalypse on the island of Patmos, inserted in the death throes of his embryonic revelation, to pour him into the Megaron to build.

The saint appears only on certain days looking at Vernarth from afar, to encourage him in his progress on the rocky rocks of sharp silica, he is seen as a beautiful adonis dressed in a chlamys with delicate pinkish tones. With such scruples, he redounds a psalm of the angel that normally accompanies the Evangelist around him, with greenish and indigo tones in the perspective quadrinomial of heaven, that he was perishing in his most afterlife redemption in the glory of the empyrean. More convenient than the superlative spiritual intelligence irrigated with the aldehyde, and the condensed water of Skalá, in hecatombs that indicated anarchies of the luminous prophetic men and the habit of the exokarstic soil, endowed with a small perforated Epsilon demon, obtaining its chemical weathering in certain limestone rocks, dolomite, and plaster. Diverting the attention of Etréstles that he glowed overwhelmed and charred. He was not stopped by the currents of splendor and the stormy pollutions of Cymopolea, in his hieratic invocation of the scalded typhoons of the drills of Hephaestus. This demon could be Tytillinus timorous in the defections of the deities of Mnemosyne relegating himself from his precepts, which according to this legend induced protervas inclinations of the clergy during the omitted religious services, he is the one that Saint John the Evangelist feared, that he would not give him the Asfalés Pérasma “license” to enter and be able to commission them in tasks that had been predicted for the Katapausis services after the quarterly. The Travertine silica, with residual sedimentary rocks, was partialized from the extrinsic biogenic that is deposited outside, the travertine predicted the monumental rocky karst of Patmos, for the secretions of calcium carbonate, among so much modest certainty taking you through the Invisible Eclectic Portal, and their Mundis Parallel that crashed with attached carbon molecules that, in disarray, manned them. The chasm was a cascade of weathering that became stalactites in the runes of the travertines, Thermo dynamizing the cavities that were conceived in the invisible caverns, under the parallel caves of the translucent travertine and in the sapwood of the troglodyte ghosts, materializing on the top wind tunnel.

Vernarth; I was with everyone working in the building of the Temple near the outside walls of the Cavern of San Juan, there was Etréstles Eurídice, Raeder, Petrobus, and Alikanto immersed in the Aulos who rang about exciting their ears with the royal denotes, which always had a special quality when he remained in Kalimnos. In good ink, knowing that the entire limen of proximity to the cavern was flooded by the enigmatic revulsive with the presence of Tytillinus, all are reordered towards the poles of tangible etherization with Psalms 120 to 132, thus they would give the antipode disposition with the Divine Mercy, to compensate the crown of the fifteen hours in the afternoon, thus disintegrating the agonizing parallel world that coincides with that of the fifteen hours in the morning. Somehow refraining from the northern paragon with the Tytillinus' shadowing, with the hooks of bewilderment and its scathing thoughts. With precisely this conspicuous shape; Vernarth will allow himself to be swallowed by the beast and reside in his abrasive stomach, making him believe that it will be consumed by him, so that he will soon fall close to it when vomited, thus confusing him, to make him believe that he was the same baby from his conceived womb. Vernarth manages to capture this exotic sinister image near the sinkhole, seeing him depressed in the Tytillinus Prisco; where all attentive listened to the textual vocabularies of the beatific, with the fruit of Karpos, for the benefit of a descendant gained by defeating the devil.

The European Sibilla carried the Gladius in his hand but exchanged it with the Xifos alternately for the death of innocents entrusted by Herod the Great, and for the evasion of the Holy family into Egypt. This confirms the liturgical grouping of the Easter Triduum; alluding to the passion of Christ, and perpetrating the pain of the Devout at his death, and triumphant at his resurrection. The sense of surrealism transports Saint John digging in all the layers and hordes of the Faith, his component of tribulation moved in the Egyptian and Greek cartography, mobilizing the triangular areas of the Palan, which moved in a geometric block reaching the edges of the hypotenuse gradient and the wind tunnel that lifted them, cornering the beast that visited them, pretending to be weak and imprecise. The man will carry the simile of his name, with hyperbole more or less in men who dare not to anticipate the conflicts of the gained space.

Vernarth, plots to continue insinuating with his labors, sees with optimism escape from this calamity, calls everyone to be close to the law ..., once they continued taking the steps towards the cavern. He emerges from convulsions on all edges of the cave, leaving everything dark and with vanities deterred at the end of the temporal Mundis Parallel. In the intermission, Saint John towards the response of Psalm 120 to 132, the fiery roar of the playful roar of the Tytillinus interferes, banishing the shaking of its **** to banish it from the Basilisk's egg, avoiding creating its heavy monarchy over them by prostrating them, as if to dissent. by being repentant or beheaded. Saint John the Evangelist will be an egregious demonologist, compiling thick volumes with the names of the attributions of each of the demons of infernal hierarchy. In this Venusian Aion symmetry, he moves them interconnecting with sublime periods where the intuition of the zafral of the human scale is lost, and of the archetype of Satanism or Satagenesis, with austere precision that includes Leviathan, ruler of the demons, to Ukobach, procurator of keeping the infernal flames alive. So that the manumission of slavery finally reigns according to one's own demonized moral individuality. The amount of an invocation of this type is always the soul of the unconscious individual, who will end up going to be squeezed into the underworld. The demons are invoked and they will invoke themselves in their dawn, to walk in their own darkness of the stagnant past, the mechanized present, and the multidimensional conscious future by means of exclusive enchantments that will be found here in the Mundi Parallel of the Invisible Eclectic Portal.

Dream a dream.
Make paradise twice as nice.
Take away all ills.
Apollo taught muses their crafts.
While playing on his lyre.

The muses danced on laurel leaves.
Paradise on Mount Helicon.
What was purpose of those muses?
I hear your request.

In land of myth from times long gone.
Nine goddesses,
spirits,
to put the world to rights.
With artistry, music, science and literature.
Linked under the heavens.
Forget the evils of the world.
Music, poetry catharsis.


Thalia.
Hysterical lady of comedy it seemed.
Good cheer and plenty sent.

Clio.
Made her history.
Wanted fame 'twas said.
Tried to keep it cheerful.

Along came Melpomene.
Singing loudly while playing around with tragedy.

Urania.
In celestial style,
glances to the heavens.

While Polyhymnia.
Sings and dances.
Making many songs
Sometimes in a silent mime.

The lovely Erato compiled poetic words of love.

Euterpe.
Made lyrics poetical
Brim filled with joy.
Maybe for Polyhymnia to sing

Calliope.
Her beautiful voice is heard.
Nearly a Nightingale.
Maybe singing bird.

Creation of poems based on epics.
Terpsichore
Danced on and on eternally.

While poets pens write on!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

the only calliope
i ever really wanted
has already decided
she's through with me
without giving me
a chance to speak.
-
and she's polyhymnia
in the comedy of hell,
raising voice in praise
of anything she respects
and in that she garners
all the power intrinsic.
-
no need for erato
when she's around
to keep my arteries
and thoughts clear
of emotional plaque
and writers' embolisms.
-
she is euterpe on a stage
of all the beautiful words
in all the beautiful languages
that can never be explained,
only known, and loved
and said in blissful ignorance.
-
she's thalia and melpomene,
comedy and tragedy,
laughter in her steps,
and springtime song,
and the ache of departure
evident in her wake.
-
terpischore at play
when the music starts,
involuntary, a reflex;
dancing is like breathing
to she who will break
my heart so many times.
-
she is urania --
she keeps my eyes
on infinity and away
from sights that feel
like shaky index knuckles
on unforgiving pistol triggers.
-
she is clio, keeper
of simple night histories,
because those are what
she lives for,  and those are
what i've always mused upon
living for -- with her.

I call upon their harmony
They honor me with artistry
The pupils of Apollo's
Lyre resonant inside of me
Calliope adventurous,
Intrepid in her recklessness
Emboldening my will to lead
The unenlightened on this quest
Through Clio's scrolls of history
My oracle clairvoyant
She has graced me with the vision
Of the future sky chatoyant
And a buoyant sea of Euterpe
All floating through the lyricist
That synchronizes all of this
Into a metamorphosis
Evolving as Erato's love
A heart as soft as silk
A dove, tabula rasa thirsting for
The Mother Gaea's milk
To rise from Melpomene
Masks of tragic flaws of Icarus
For I divine the comedies
Thalia simply can't resist
Polyhymnia, Terpsichore
My rarest of expressions
Still reveal themselves in forms
Of spirit guide possessions
When Urania in cosmic bliss
Transports me to the stars
Reborn again to join them
As Mnemosyne's memoirs

Urania speaks with darken'd brow:
  'Thou pratest here where thou art least;
  This faith has many a purer priest,
And many an abler voice than thou.

'Go down beside thy native rill,
  On thy Parnassus set thy feet,
  And hear thy laurel whisper sweet
About the ledges of the hill.'

And my Melpomene replies,
  A touch of shame upon her cheek:
  'I am not worthy ev'n to speak
Of thy prevailing mysteries;

'For I am but an earthly Muse,
  And owning but a little art
  To lull with song an aching heart,
And render human love his dues;

'But brooding on the dear one dead,
  And all he said of things divine,
  (And dear to me as sacred wine
To dying lips is all he said),

'I murmur'd, as I came along,
  Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd;
  And loiter'd in the master's field,
And darken'd sanctities with song.'

ever pressing freedom with
words to follow suit;
simple utensil awaiting its full potential
as strokes find spacings dissevering letters,
leaving fractured symbols intangible.
my blood be shed to fill some well,
to be drawn within a reservoir
and found scrawled in repetition
     blue rose, blue rose, blue rose
and free we are from complexities,
to laze along the banks of Lotus fields
and feast, and quaff, and lull ‘fore
remorse stings at return across Oceans.
as Urania casts colors upon
a sky of fading Sun, awaiting to show
Her mass brilliance of stars. each, a soul
lending guidance since time-beginning –

- - - abrupt ending

Nada mejor para cantar la vida,
y aun para dar sonrisas a la muerte,
que la áurea copa donde Venus vierte
la esencia azul de su viña encendida.
Por respirar los perfumes de Armida
y por sorber el vino de su beso,
vino de ardor, de beso, de embeleso,
fuérase al cielo en la bestia de Orlando,
¡Voz de oro y miel para decir cantando:
la mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!Cabellos largos en la buhardilla,
noches de insomnio al blancor del invierno,
pan de dolor con la sal de lo eterno
y ojos de ardor en que Juvencia brilla;
el tiempo en vano mueve su cuchilla,
el hilo de oro permanece ileso;
visión de gloria para el libro impreso
que en sueños va como una mariposa
y una esperanza en la boca de rosa:
¡La mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!Regio automóvil, regia cetrería,
borla y muceta, heráldica fortuna,
nada son como a la luz de la Luna
una mujer hecha una melodía.
Barca de amar busca la fantasía,
no el yacht de Alfonso o la barca de Creso.
Da al cuerpo llama y fortifica el seso
ese archivado y vital paraíso;
pasad de largo, Abelardo y Narciso:
¡La mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!Clío está en esa frente hecha de Aurora,
Euterpe canta en esta lengua fina,
Talía ríe en la boca divina,
Melpómene es ese gesto que implora;
en estos pies Terpsícore se adora,
cuello inclinado es de Erato embeleso,
Polymnia intenta a Calíope proceso
por esos ojos en que Amor se quema.
Urania rige todo ese sistema:
¡La mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!No protestéis con celo protestante,
contra el panal de rosas y claveles
en que Tiziano moja sus pinceles
y gusta el cielo de Beatrice el Dante.
Por eso existe el verso de diamante,
por eso el iris tiéndese y por eso
humano genio es celeste progreso.
Líricos cantan y meditan sabios
por esos pechos y por esos labios:
¡La mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!ENVÍO:Gregorio: nada al cantor determina
como el gentil estímulo del beso.
Gloria al sabor de la boca divina.
¡La mejor musa es la de carne y hueso!

Young girl, songs lamenting the American condition,

You are the catalyst of sexuality.
You are the tar on my fingers that keeps me writing.

Clear in your heart, paradox is the word and I am the scar,

You're too afraid to come outside,
Bombs won't break through your kitchen tables and plexiglass.

Far too much shelter, this is a movement I can get behind. Starting to crack. Starting to scream.

The motivation now: breaking out of mediocrity.
///
At least I'm better than those guys, I must continue to assure myself.

I might be the loner,

Underwhelming boy who will never serve his country,

Yet I don't go around breaking things that aren't mine—

Urania may have pulled my strings like a puppet,

But I snapped her sanity.

Entire lives encircle Sol believing that the ancient gods are a fiction.
These joyless sacks of empty flesh have never been graced with a moment in your presence. In that instant, all doubt is dispelled, for at your birth the Muses crafted their ultimate blessing to us mortals.

You embody the inspiration of Polyhymnia, Erato, and Calliope;
     sacred, epic, love poetry flows unbidden from even the most
     leaden of souls when you are near.
Dreams of grand comedies, heroic tragedies, and monumental
     histories spring forth in you wake; each worthy of the pens of
     Thalia, Melpomene, and Clio.
Your every sound and step cause Euterpe and Terpsichore to glow
     with pride.
But possibly the most magnificent caress cam from Urania; for you,
     my Love, are the incarnation of the naked stars in all their
     infinite beauty, enshrined on this unworthy Earth.

I wish I could let her know I still ... everything.

An after thought.

I know, I had another option. Though, you did not see her weep.

She was sad.
The mother of all living,
she was sad, and I, wounded in my side,

I lacked the knowing. So,  I chose to know, so

I might comfort her, with a touch, ah, I know a place,

I can touch. Tweak, do you feel that? Do you know...

sniff. 's enough, words as nodes, knots, gnosticated subtility, be guiling,

I was be guiled, by golly, and I know you know exactly what I mean... from the fruit,
here, taste
the forbidden fruit, I tasted, chewed and swallowed and shared,

with you, because I love you...

I know, now, I was beguiled; but then beguilement, per se,

was as much a mystery as death. You knew. You tasted life in non-nascent state. You know,

some things stay mysterious.

Now, I know guile, for goodness sake, death remains a mystery.

But if you believe, I know a way, all your worries melt away. It takes a while.

Muse, amuse, mire, admire, go forth and conquer the unknown with knowns. Don't lie.
Gwa, go on.

Mean sedulously all you say you know.

Footnotes:

adventure (n.)
c. 1200, aventure, auenture "that which happens by chance, fortune, luck," from Old French aventure (11c.) "chance, accident, occurrence, event, happening," from Latin adventura (res) "(a thing) about to happen," from fem. of adventurus, future participle of advenire "to come to, reach, arrive at," from ad "to" (see ad-) + venire "to come," from a suffixed form of PIE root *gwa- "to go, come."

sedulous (adj.)1530s, from Latin sedulus "attentive, painstaking, diligent, busy, zealous," probably from sedulo (adv.) "sincerely, diligently," from sedolo "without deception or guile," from se- "without, apart" (see secret (n.)) + dolo, ablative of dolus "deception, guile," cognate with Greek dolos "ruse, snare." Related: Sedulously; sedulousness

secret (n.)
late 14c., from Latin secretus "set apart, withdrawn; hidden, concealed, private," past participle of secernere "to set apart, part, divide; exclude," from se- "without, apart," properly "on one's own" (see se-) + cernere "separate" (from PIE root *krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish").
As an adjective from late 14c., from French secret, adjective use of noun. Open secret is from 1828. Secret agent first recorded 1715; secret service is from 1737; secret weapon is from 1936.

hallow (v.)
Old English halgian "to make holy, sanctify; to honor as holy, consecrate, ordain," related to halig "holy," from Proto-Germanic *hailagon (source also of Old Saxon helagon, Middle Dutch heligen, Old Norse helga), from PIE root *kailo- "whole, uninjured, of good omen" (see health). Used in Christian translations to render Latin sanctificare. Related: Hallowed; hallowing.

health (n.)
Old English hælþ "wholeness, a being whole, sound or well," from Proto-Germanic *hailitho, from PIE *kailo- "whole, uninjured, of good omen" (source also of Old English hal "hale, whole;" Old Norse heill "healthy;" Old English halig, Old Norse helge "holy, sacred;" Old English hælan "to heal"). With Proto-Germanic abstract noun suffix *-itho (see -th (2)).

guile (n.)
mid-12c., from Old French guile "deceit, wile, fraud, ruse, trickery," probably from Frankish *wigila "trick, ruse" or a related Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *wih-l- (source also of Old Frisian wigila "sorcery, witchcraft," Old English wig "idol," Gothic weihs "holy," German weihen "consecrate"), from PIE root *weik- (2) "consecrated, holy."

beguile (v.)"delude by artifice," early 13c., from be- + guile (v.). Meaning "entertain with passtimes" is by 1580s (compare the sense evolution of amuse). Related: Beguiled; beguiling.

amuse (v.)
late 15c., "to divert the attention, beguile, delude," from Old French amuser "fool, tease, hoax, entrap; make fun of," literally "cause to muse" (as a distraction), from a "at, to" (from Latin ad, but here probably a causal prefix) + muser "ponder, stare fixedly" (see muse (v.)).
Original English senses obsolete; meaning "divert from serious business, tickle the fancy of" is recorded from 1630s, but through 18c. the primary meaning was "deceive, cheat" by first occupying the attention. "The word was not in reg. use bef. 1600, and was not used by Shakespere" [OED]. Bemuse retains more of the original meaning. Greek amousos meant "without Muses," hence "uneducated."

Muse (n.)
late 14c., "one of the nine Muses of classical mythology," daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, protectors of the arts; from Old French Muse and directly from Latin Musa, from Greek Mousa, "the Muse," also "music, song," ultimately from PIE root *men- (1) "to think." Meaning "inspiring goddess of a particular poet" (with a lower-case m-) is from late 14c.
The traditional names and specialties of the nine Muses are: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry, lyric art), Euterpe (music, especially flute), Melpomene (tragedy), Polymnia (hymns), Terpsichore (dance­), Thalia (comedy), Urania (astronomy).

muse (v.)
"to reflect, ponder, meditate; to be absorbed in thought," mid-14c., from Old French muser (12c.) "to ponder, dream, wonder; loiter, waste time," which is of uncertain origin; the explanation in Diez and Skeat is literally "to stand with one's nose in the air" (or, possibly, "to sniff about" like a dog who has lost the scent), from muse "muzzle," from Gallo-Roman *musa "snout," itself a word of unknown origin. The modern word probably has been influenced in sense by muse (n.). Related: Mused; musing.

even i was surprised, Ed Sheeran wrote the song love yourself for Justin Bieber? seriously, when i was working security at one of his gigs at Wembley he mentioned it... Eddie?! you wrote this song? sorry... but Justin does a better "cover"... it's the sax you know... and the sing-along tad-tad-alla(h)... tad-alla(h)... that's the first surprise... the second surprise caught me off guard... completely... there's this custom in England where... once upon a time... passengers of a bus would exit the bus thanking the driver... old people of England still do it... i'm much younger... old people don't travel on the last buses or the night buses... i don't thank drivers of buses during the daytime... but come travelling on the last buses and the night buses... dude! you're working the graveyard shift... before i step off onto the bus-stop i bellow out a THANK YOU... i usually head no reply... why? most bus drivers get abused by pointless passengers... people who take things for granted... but today? as i was getting off at the North St. bus stop from the no. 86 bus... i hollered... THANK YOU... echo... no echo? what?! did i just hear that? the bus driver hollered back: YOU'RE WELCOME! what the **** just happened?! i interacted with a human being? seriously?! i'd love to do that more often...

the day ended with my ******* in an alley
thinking about sweet-little-nothings:
perhaps it was a thought about wild...
        woodland strawberries... i must have been thinking
about a something that's literally a nothing...
maybe i was clarifying the adoration of *******
of a man when he ****** in a darkened alley...

the day began with: the iron is ******! father changed
the fuse but that didn't help!
my mother was visited by a friend of hers'
who... would still prefer eat a moulding cake
filled with plums: the edges... than eat nothing...
over a coffee and conversation...
she's rather have that...
i was "neurotic": complaining: but how can i go
to work not having ironed my shirt?!
sure! but this is the last shirt from Mark & Spencer's
that looks acceptable when un-ironed!
sure... the creases don't look that bad...
but come on! order a new iron:
            i have ironed trousers and i have polished
shoes... but an un-ironed shirt? unbecoming...

women are hardly pre-packaged goods...

well.. i left the house leaving droplets of something
akin to the lyrics of Three Kingfisher's...
personally? i prefer the cover by Monster Magnet
than the original of Donovan's...
phone addiction... i told my mother's friend:
you know who has the biggest problem?
Muslims and copper-necks...
they are addicted to these things...
i don't know WHY or HOW...
but these younglings are always on their phones...
take any white boy or any... and there's no problem...
no... it's the truth...
these people are following suit toward
the crumbling of: or the reinterpretation of Christianity
via the Nag Hammadi library...

i left for work early... i needed to buy new sunglasses...
at the Romford H & M they were out of stock...
bull... ****...
what?! summer's over all of a sudden?!
the sun is dimming?!
mind you... it's true... that constellation once
enlarged upon the sky is... currently... very ******* away:
that massive wheelbarrow...
the earth has tilted... it's in a microscopic "agenda"
(misnomer, i have no other word,
"agenda" doesn't break up the flow
of the narrative)...

at work everyone seemed happy... there was
a feeling of a "conspiracy of friendship"...
i like... "conspiracies of friendship"...
the shift went along just like smoothing a nugget
of butter on a warm toast...
by the time i came come pretending to be tired
my male Maine **** was well qualified
in keeping watch in complete darkness my usual
crow-spot of a windowsill... perched like i'm usually...
with one leg folded: sitting on it...
the moment i walked in and put on the light
he jumped off his Cerberus' quest and hovered
with agile limbs of missing limps into my bed...
hello... lover...

i showcased him today... my "supervisor" was
asking for direction... father's birthday...
Triumph over Harley Davidson?
each and every day... Triumph conquers the pomp
and circumstance of any Harley!
my mother and grandmother refrained me from
picking up a motorcycle! thank you ladies!
i picked up a bicycle... i told her:
i like generating my own momentum...
they said: i don't want a "donor" in the family...
but i agreed in a "somewhat, somewhat":
i like generating my own momentum...
you're in complete control...

two totems of foxes figuring out an outer suburbia
while i was smoking a Dunhill cigarette...
i'm still listening too pretty songs...
i'll relax when i'lll start listening to all the ugly
masculine songs...

the shift passed great... i tried to slip for a quick
cigarette after half time finished...
i was caught on CCTV with the message that ran
along the wording: hey! we see you!
half-time finished... PLEASE - ******* back to your
intended placing - PLEASE: obviously not literally
thus worded...

two more shifts...
a brothel is unlike a night club... there's no difference
between a Thursday's night or a Friday's night...
i needed to relax...
obviously i finished my shift... i needed an excuse...
i will not be paying a fair's worth from zone through to zone 6,
i'll pay the fair from zone 3 to 4... then i'll get a bus
through to zone 6... but i'll need to stop off
at the brothel... drink my per usual aphrodisiac
of a certain cider... and some whiskey...
**** a girl and... DREAM A BIG NOTHING...
SOMNIUM NIHIL-MAGNUS!
i.e.: nothing: big... dream up...

i circled the brothel like i usually do... some *******
sewer rat blocked my first entry...
i later heard him hardly ******* and more talking
in the adjacent room... i heard no moans...
some prostitutes are there to speak... some are
there fore "oar-men": for *******...
i use shadows for company...

hmm...

this is how i finally figured out the dynamic of
a brothel... second time getting *****-******...
hmm...

i'm the soul of Tyrion Lannister in a body
of a Jamie.... Lannister... i hate the game of thrones:
but no, ******* DWARF is going to eclipse reality...
i figured out the brothel after...
after i wasted so much money on...
on... what was wasted in an hour that could be done
in 30 minutes...
30 minutes? that means? i'll **** all the ******
in the brothel! i won't have a favourite!
**** me! i'll **** all of them!
one by one i'll **** them all!

pretty music is missing as i'm writing this...
the forest at night, foxes, the graveyard at night...
moon! moooon! ah-woooooo!
i will not bark...
my god... of the three...
i had before me...
the originals: Melete, Aoede, and Mneme:
the original Boeotian muses
and Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe,
Melpomene, Polyhymnia,
Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania...
no no... St. Francis' muses...
i want to **** them...

                 like today... i was doing my glory marches
rubbing my crotch to get an imitation *******...
drinking my whiskey by a shallow glug...
filling my bowels with enough aphrodisiac cider...
i entered the "abode" having "the" before me... how did i chose?
carelessly...
the one with the least language skills...
she knew how to un-sheath my **** but when i told her
to get some oil to ***-**** me she asked for extra money...
i didn't ask for a blow-job without a ******...
my skin is dry after washing myself... your skin is dry...

she eventually caught on... *******... what a lovely pair of
****...
peaches and pears...
hmm! that's funny! that's really funny!
what's that metaphor Moses inquired with?
you ever feel like...
Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss-erpent...
you ever feel like? ever? you ever feel like
being the gardener of Eden?!
how, you might ask?
hmm...  ever touch a woman's breast as it's hanging
over your torso... teasing the head of your ****...
ever touch a woman's breast... and reimagine
it being a dangling apple, on a tree?
when you touch it? i felt a sense of reconciliation
today...
i was plucking an apple from an apple tree
by touching up a woman's breast dangling over me while
she was giving me the pleasures of *******!
you know what it feels like? this metaphor?
of reimagining a woman's breast as an apple?
while it's dangling over your torso...
while she's performing ******* onto you...
she's digging her bruised **** and stubble of its worth
against your leg...

my god! the Eden project...
first the *******... then the cow-girl...
she got bored of that... she told me to change position...
she talked too much... i changed position... obviously...
but i told her in "sign-language":
you talk too much... talking during *******
is a massive turn-off... yap yap yap...
i burned my eyes into her eyes...
she couldn't take it... she wanted me to *******...
i couldn't... she told me to stop...
i stop... LIMP ******* ****...
hey! yoiu told me to stop!
no i didn't!
yes you did!
i pointed at her!
she was about to slander me for getting a limp ****!
well... yeah! you talk during *** you get a limpy!
i don't bring "god" into this practice!
only onomatopoeias! who, the, ****, in, their,
right, state, of, mind... talks, during, ***?!
during *** there are only vowels and consonants...
summon god upon this sacred altar of continuum?!
you have to be kidding me...
eyes speak: eyes eat eyes!
woman: have you learned nothing?!
you clearly have learned nothing of what i said!
i touch your breast i pluck an apple from the apple
tree that's your body!
look at you, for all this time you have kept your secrets:
interested men, internalised them...
conquered them! now?! what have you done you
silly cow! you have turned them off!
you silly little *****!
i have to sink to the lowest depths of your, self,
to find my sort of sexually-charged-medicinal-relief!
i need more! i'm a glutton at heart...
i need more ****** partners... i need to **** all
these prostitutes in this brothel!
i need them to fall in love with me...

that's why she stopped me!
******* at first... then her on top... then she asked
me to change position with me arching over her
missionary... what?! there's a problem?
what?! i'm supposed to ******* so easily?!
you ******* Moxart and the magic ****?!
i'm playing the flute! flute! the flute flew!
over seven mountains and the seven seas!

she started projection some ******* onto me
when she asked asked for my name: MATH-EW...
Matthew...
she retored with: MAFIA?!
what? no... MAF-YEW...
MAFIA... well **** me... she liked the fetish of
me being part of a MAFIA... yeah,...
i'm one of Milton's imaginations...

she stopped the *******... i had a stern face
upon a mask i wasn't willing to take off...
she implored me to ******* into her...
mid-pumping i gave up on her imploring
me to do so...
           some women... just... simply...
talk too much during ***...

****'s sake... just thinking about her gives me
the drunken hiccups... i hate drunken hiccups...

i love ******* ******...
i touch one of their ******* i'm plucking an apple
from an the forbidden tree of Eden...
oh! hello sunshine! Moses!
you think i never wandered these parts
with no one except my shadow for company?!
i don't pay ****** for a COMPANY OF LIES...

mendacium coetus

the lying company? easily reversed...
she ignored me...
i was supposed to be finished by growing limp
in the *******...
like **** i was...
i figured out the brothel long before she was
first squealing her first surprise...
of a fake ******...

you what?!
i love working with people that do not understand
or appreciate my shadow-side,
everyone, is, so, neuro-, -typical...
such, boring, creatures...
i need *** like i need air...
the more of it i get: the more tame i become...
why? few "things" interest me...
and the ones that interest me are **** related:
but not children rearing related:
i discover my true self on the basis of
the Libra: do i love to **** more than i like to drink?!
maybe the macabre me says: i like both... equally...

how did we end up?
i had a semi-limp **** in hand... she was all like: ah...
i ******* told her! your skin is dry! i want a *****-****!
what?! extra oil?! i just told you... spear-head me with
extra oil! rub your glorious **** in the oil
let me phallus tease your *******!

after i couldn't finish with her in her ****
she finally decided to do me off happy with a hand-job
and some well oiled *****-*******...
obvious i was relieved...
at least she knew the reasons for having ******* and pulling it
back...i have to admit...
between a ******* and doing **** *******:
i'm not gay... **** is ******* lost on me...
*****-******* is the best...
esp. when lubricated...

   it's the sort of imitation of being an infant
once more... the re-ascending taste of a woman's ******...
do men have these thoughts? i.e. i was an infant once...
i'm an infant again: but as a grown man
and not an infant... i love suckling on those *****...
she said i ****** too hard... i softened my suckling...

women as such sexually doubly-standard(ed)
creatures... they are mothers
but at the same time they are ******...
i love it! more! more! more!
when once they feed the babe... prior to there's
all that *** *******!
for "irritation's sake" of arousal!

i could never do **** *** with a woman...
these women have crossed a threshold for me...
i like ******* too much...
i mean... **** me... the way ******* sometimes feels like?
it feels like... sitting on a very comfortable leather
arm-chair... esp. if you're oozing out a ****
and farting at the same time!

me? i'm going to **** the rest of these prostitutes
in the brothel...
i'm on a rampage... i don't care..
and the people at work will just grimace and say:
i want to work with Matthew...
and they will... because i can be one person during
the day... and another person during the night...

apporto cadavera in mensa
bring corpses to the table!

i'll **** them all! dead or living!
i'll morph the ****-erotica of the serpent
of the phallus...
with the apple-***... as i would:
massage it through from summer through to
autumn... like a babe... suckle at its *******
and imitation-****..., right in between
the "crease"... of... clean... dried skin...
juice of flush of FLESH...

i love hand-jobs oiled up... with her **** imitating
****...
but there's also that bus-driver...
i love bus-drivers... i wanted to be a bus-driver once...
to become a Leibniz... a man of high intellect
but of subversive ambition...
i always abhorred ladder-climbing: socially...
symbolically....
preferred rock climbing...
simultaneously: what Leibniz conjured up with
Newton... the infinitesimal calculus?
of the two? Leibniz lived a better life of the two...
paddles... tattles... squids and frogs...
Newton had his Volatire and apple...
me? i have my... *******'s breast and pluck!
what's the supposed serpent you say?
my apple is pretty ripe... it's full *****... i just plucked it!

this apple, is mine...
pomum hic est mea!
i plucked this apple from the tree:
and fed it back to the woman unwilling to feed it back
to the thirsty man!
i don't care much for the woman feeding
or the thirsty man!
the night is "thirsty" for the light.