Malapert Minx

18th: Milton

2006-01-06T23:25:00.000Z

L'Allegro

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the Lantskip round it measures,
Russet Lawns, and Fallows Gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest:
Meadows trim with Daisies pied,
Shallow Brooks, and Rivers wide.
Towers, and Battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted Trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a Cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged Oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
Of Herbs, and other Country Messes,
Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
And then in haste her Bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the Sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead
To the tann'd Haycock in the Mead,
Some times with secure delight
The up-land Hamlets will invite,
When the merry Bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the Chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a Sunshine Holyday,
Till the live-long day-light fail,
Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How Faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pinch'd, and pull'd she said,
And by the Friar's Lantern led
Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat,
To earn his Cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy Flail hath thresh'd the Corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the Lubber Fiend.
And stretch'd out all the Chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And Crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first Cock his Mattin rings,
Thus done the Tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering Winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd Cites please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of Knights and Barons bold,
In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold,
With store of Ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize,
Of Wit, or Arms, while both contend
To win her Grace, whom all commend,
There let Hymen oft appear
In Saffron robe, with Taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique Pageantry,
On Summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonsons learned Sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native Wood-notes wild,
And ever against eating Cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian Airs,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain'd Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth with thee, I mean to live.
~~~
John Milton

19th: Rumi

2005-12-30T14:28:00.000Z

Blessed time! when we are sitting,

I and thou,

With two forms and only one soul,

I and thou.

Fragrance, song of birds, they quicken ev'rything

When we come into the garden,

I and thou.

All the stars of heaven hurry

to see us,

And we show them our own moon,

I and thou-

I and thou without words, without

I and thou-

In delight we are united,

I and thou.

Sugar chew the heaven's parrots

in that place

Where we're sitting, laughing sweetly,

I and thou.

Strange that I and thou together

in this nook

Are apart a thousand miles, see-

I and thou.

One form in this dust, the other

in that land.

Sweet eternal Paradise there...

I and thou.
~~~
Rumi

17th: John Donne

2005-12-17T20:42:00.000Z

THE GOOD-MORROW.
by John Donne

I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear ;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west ?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I

Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

~~~

Picture: Thatched Cottages in Sunshine - Vincent Van Gogh

Music: Syrinx - Debussy

16th: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

2005-12-10T00:51:00.000Z

(Lines 1 – 19)

Reading by Marie Borroff

Passus I

SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,
Þe bor brittened and brent to bronde and askez,
Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wrot
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe:
Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde,
Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome
Welnee of al þe wele in þe west iles.
Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe,
With gret bobbaunce þat bure he biges vpon fyrst,
And neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;
Tirius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,
Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes,
And fer ouer þe French flod Felix Brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settez
wyth wynne,
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi syþez hatz wont þerinne,
And oft boþe blysse and blunder
Ful skete hatz skyfted synne.

Modern Translation

Historical Prologue (1)

The siege and assault having ceased at Troy
as its blazing battlements blackened to ash,
the man who had planned and plotted that treason
had trial enough for the truest traitor!
Then Aeneas the prince and his honored line
plundered provinces and held in their power
nearly all the wealth of the western isles.
Thus Romulus swiftly arriving at Rome
sets up that city and in swelling pride
gives it his name, the name it now bears;
and in Tuscany Tirius raises up towns,
and in Lombardy Langoberde settles the land,
and far past the French coast Felix Brutus
founds Britain on broad hills, and so bright hopes
begin,
where wonders, wars, misfortune
and troubled times have been,
where bliss and blind confusion
have come and gone again.

15th: Baudelaire

2005-12-08T00:17:00.000Z

De Profundis Clamavi

Have pity, You alone whom I adore
From down this black pit where my heart is sped,
A sombre universe ringed round with lead
Where fear and curses the long night explore.

Six months a cold sun hovers overhead;
The other six is night upon this land.
No beast; no stream; no wood; no leaves expand.
The desert Pole is not a waste so dead.

Now in the whole world there's no horror quite
so cold and cruel as this glacial sun,
So like old Chaos as this boundless night;

I envy the least animals that run,
Which can find respite in brute slumber drowned,
So slowly is the skein of time unwound.

Charles Baudelaire

14th: La Wally - Catalani

2005-12-04T23:34:00.000Z

Ebbene? ... N'andrò lontana
~~~
An Aria
If the music is working you
may hear this being sung by
Maria Callas
~~~
Ebbene? ... N'andrò lontana,
come va l'eco della pia campana,
là, fra la neve bianca;
là, fra le nubi d'or;
là, dov'è la speranza, la speranza
il rimpianto, il rimpianto, e il dolor!

O della madre mia casa gioconda,
la Wally n'andrà da te,
da te lontana assai,
e forse a te, e forse a te,
non farà mai più ritorno,
nè più la rivedrai!
mai più, mai più!

N'andrò sola e lontana,
come l'eco è della pia campana,
là, fra la neve bianca;
n'andrò, n'andrò sola e lontana!
e fra le nubi d'or!
~~~
'Tis well! my way lies yonder!
I hear afar the snowy mountains calling;
Forth to their heights I wander,
Forth to the sunset glow;
'Tis they shall calm the sorrow, calm the sorrow,
This heart alone, this heart alone may know.

Oh! peaceful cottage,
Dear home of my childhood,
The mountains are calling me!
Alas! I now must leave thee!
And nevermore,
And nevermore shall mine eyes fondly behold thee!
Home that I love so dearly.
Farewell! farewell!

'Tis well! my way lies yonder;
I can hear the snowy mountains calling;
Forth to their heights I wander;
Farewell! farewell! home of my childhood!
Farewell for evermore!
~~~

Librettist: Luigi Illica
Composer: Alfredo Catalani
Sung By: Maria Callas, recorded 1955
Possibly remembered from the film “Diva”

Post script
And then the lovers die in an avalanche…
Well, what did you expect, this is an opera.

13th: Shakespeare

2005-12-03T02:55:00.000Z

Sonnet LX

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith, being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow;
And yet, to times, in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

William Shakespeare

12th: Milton

2005-12-01T22:10:00.000Z

Great things, and full of wonder in our eares,
Farr differing from this World, thou hast reveal'd
Divine interpreter, by favour sent
Down from the Empyrean to forewarne
Us timely of what might else have bin our loss,
Unknown, which human knowledg could not reach:
For which to the infinitly Good we owe
Immortal thanks, and his admonishment
Receave with solemne purpose to observe
Immutably his sovran will, the end
Of what we are. But since thou hast voutsaf't
Gently for our instruction to impart
Things above Earthly thought, which yet concernd
Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemd,
Deign to descend now lower, and relate
What may no less perhaps availe us known,
How first began this Heav'n which we behold
Distant so high, with moving Fires adornd
Innumerable, and this which yeelds or fills
All space, the ambient Aire, wide interfus'd
Imbracing round this florid Earth, what cause
Mov'd the Creator in his holy Rest
Through all Eternitie so late to build
In Chaos, and the work begun, how soon
Absolv'd, if unforbid thou maist unfould
What wee, not to explore the secrets aske
Of his Eternal Empire, but the more
To magnifie his works, the more we know.
And the great Light of Day yet wants to run
Much of his Race though steep, suspens in Heav'n
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice he heares,
And longer will delay to heare thee tell
His Generation, and the rising Birth
Of Nature from the unapparent Deep:
Or if the Starr of Eevning and the Moon
Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring
Silence, and Sleep listning to thee will watch,
Or we can bid his absence, till thy Song
End, and dismiss thee ere the Morning shine.
~~~
From “Paradise Lost”

John Milton

11th: Keats

2005-11-29T23:05:00.000Z

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, -
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

John Keats

10th: Shakespeare

2005-11-27T18:14:00.000Z

HENRY V

Chorus

Now entertain conjecture of a time

when creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning's danger, and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin'd band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'
For forth he goes and visits all his host.
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly;
Where--O for pity!--we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

Exit

9th: Baudelaire

2005-11-26T15:36:00.000Z

Beauty

I am as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.

Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movements that disturb my pose,
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.

Before my monumental attitudes,
That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,

For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.
~~~
Charles Baudelaire

8th: Spencer

2005-11-25T13:37:00.000Z

La Donna

Amoretti

SONNET XXVII.
~
FAIR proud now tell me, why should fair be proud,

Sith all world's glory is but dross unclean:

and in the shade of death it self shall shroud,

how ever now thereof ye little ween.

That goodly Idol, now so gay beseen,

shall doff her flesh's borrowed fair attire:

and be forgot as it had never been,

that many now much worship and admire.

Ne any then shall after it inquire,

ne any mention shall thereof remain:

but what this verse, that never shall expire,

shall to you purchase with her thankless pain.

Fair be no longer proud of that shall perish,

but that which shall you make immortal, cherish

~

Edmund Spencer

7th: Marlowe

2005-11-24T21:44:00.000Z

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love,

Christopher Marlowe

6th: The Bard XVIII

2005-11-23T21:58:00.000Z

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
~

5th: A Dream of Fair Women

2005-11-23T21:08:00.000Z

A Dream of Fair Women
~

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
‘The Legend of Good Women,’ long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,
And trumpets blown for wars;

And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs;
And I saw crowds in column’d sanctuaries;
And forms that pass’d at windows and on roofs
Of marble palaces;

Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;
Lances in ambush set;

And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blasts
That run before the fluttering tongues of fire;
White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts,
And ever climbing higher;

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,
And hush’d seraglios.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way,
Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,
Torn from the fringe of spray.

I started once, or seem’d to start in pain,
Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,
As when a great thought strikes along the brain,
And flushes all the cheek.

And once my arm was lifted to hew down
A cavalier from off his saddle-bow,
That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town;
And then, I know not how,

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought
Stream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creep
Roll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d, and brought
Into the gulfs of sleep.

At last methought that I had wander’d far
In an old wood: fresh-wash’d in coolest dew
The maiden splendours of the morning star
Shook in the stedfast blue.

Enormous elm-tree-boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath
Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,
New from its silken sheath.

The dim red morn had died, her journey done,
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,
Half-fall’n across the threshold of the sun,
Never to rise again.

There was no motion in the dumb dead air,
Not any song of bird or sound of rill;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre
Is not so deadly still

As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn’d
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree,
And at the root thro’ lush green grasses burn’d
The red anemone.

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench’d in dew,
Leading from lawn to lawn.

The smell of violets, hidden in the green,
Pour’d back into my empty soul and frame
The times when I remember to have been
Joyful and free from blame.

And from within me a clear under-tone
Thrill’d thro’ mine ears in that unblissful clime,
‘Pass freely thro’: the wood is all thine own,
Until the end of time.’

At length I saw a lady within call,
Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly in her place.

‘I had great beauty: ask thou not my name:
No one can be more wise than destiny.
Many drew swords and died. Where’er I came
I brought calamity.’

‘No marvel, sovereign lady: in fair field
Myself for such a face had boldly died,’
I answer’d free; and turning I appeal’d
To one that stood beside.

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,
To her full height her stately stature draws;
‘My youth,’ she said, ‘was blasted with a curse:
This woman was the cause.

‘I was cut off from hope in that sad place,
Which men call’d Aulis in those iron years:
My father held his hand upon his face;
I, blinded with my tears,

‘Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
Waiting to see me die.

‘The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat;
The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore;
The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat;
Touch’d; and I knew no more.’

Whereto the other with a downward brow:
‘I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam,
Whirl’d by the wind, had roll’d me deep below,
Then when I left my home.’

Her slow full words sank thro’ the silence drear,
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea:
Sudden I heard a voice that cried, ‘Come here,
That I may look on thee.’

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,
One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d;
A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:
‘I govern’d men by change, and so I sway’d
All moods. ’Tis long since I have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made

‘The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humour ebb and flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood:
That makes my only woe.

‘Nay–yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull cold-blooded Cæsar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony?

‘The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime
On Fortune’s neck: we sat as God by God:
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod.

‘We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which out-burn’d Canopus. O my life
In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,

‘And the wild kiss, when fresh from war’s alarms,
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,
Contented there to die!

‘And there he died: and when I heard my name
Sigh’d forth with life I would not brook my fear
Of the other: with a worm I balk’d his fame.
What else was left? look here!’

(With that she tore her robe apart, and half
The polish’d argent of her breast to sight
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,
Showing the aspick’s bite.)

‘I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever!–lying robed and crown’d,
Worthy a Roman spouse.’

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range
Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance
From tone to tone, and glided thro’ all change
Of liveliest utterance.

When she made pause I knew not for delight;
Because with sudden motion from the ground
She raised her piercing orbs, and fill’d with light
The interval of sound.

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;
As once they drew into two burning rings
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts
Of captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard
A noise of some one coming thro’ the lawn,
And singing clearer than the crested bird
That claps his wings at dawn.

‘The torrent brooks of hallow’d Israel
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro’ the dell,
Far-heard beneath the moon.

‘The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splinter’d crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine.’

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves
The lawn by some cathedral, thro’ the door
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves
Of sound on roof and floor

Within, and anthem sung, is charm’d and tied
To where he stands,–so stood I, when that flow
Of music left the lips of her that died
To save her father’s vow;

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,
A maiden pure; as when she went along
From Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song.

My words leapt forth: ‘Heaven heads the count of crimes
With that wild oath.’ She render’d answer high:
‘Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times
I would be born and die.

‘Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,
Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.

‘My God, my land, my father–these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.

‘And I went mourning, “No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers”–emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,

‘Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
Beneath the battled tower.

‘The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring from his den;
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken’d glen,

‘Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.

‘When the next moon was roll’d into the sky,
Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire!

‘It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father’s will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.

‘Moreover it is written that my race
Hew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer
On Arnon unto Minneth.’ Here her face
Glow’d, as I look’d at her.

She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood:
‘Glory to God,’ she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
Toward the morning-star.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,
As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.

‘Alas! alas!’ a low voice, full of care,
Murmur’d beside me: ‘Turn and look on me:
I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,
If what I was I be.

‘Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!
O me, that I should ever see the light!
Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor
Do hunt me, day and night.’

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:
To whom the Egyptian: ‘O, you tamely died!
You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrust
The dagger thro’ her side.’

With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams,
Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last trance
Her murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France;

Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from tbe deep
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o’er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compass’d, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be exprest
By signs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho’ cull’d with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

4th: 3-toes Minx?

2005-11-22T19:49:00.000Z

Fowl Temptress
(a poem)
~

Ach! Begone sultry Vixen of the Barnyard!
Strutting cock-less of the walk, of my heart.

Wing'ed hussey!

No longer come with your cluck-cluck here
and your cluck-cluck there! 3-toes minx!
Get thee to a hennery!

From Minx!

3rd: Malapert

2005-11-21T12:25:00.000Z

From Whence the Name?

From beloved Geoffrey Chaucer's Poem, Troilus and Criseyde

This Troilus, that herde his lady preye
Of lordship him, wex neither quik ne deed,
Ne mighte a word for shame to it seye,
Al-though men sholde smyten of his heed.
But lord, so he wex sodeinliche reed,
And sire, his lesson, that he wende conne,
To preyen hir, is thurgh his wit y-ronne.

Cryseyde al this aspyede wel y-nough,
For she was wys, and lovede him never-the-lasse,
Al nere he malapert, or made it tough,
Or was to bold, to singe a fool a masse.
But whan his shame gan somwhat to passe,
His resons, as I may my rymes holde,
I yow wole telle, as techen bokes olde.

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Troilus and Cressida), in Middle English.
This is From Book 3 of 5.

2nd: Battles Lost

2005-11-21T04:15:00.000Z

Remember this

Have you ever begun a battle knowing you would fall? But you fought regardless. And you lost.

Many things can be changed but a closed mind is not one of them.

When you argue, remember that giving voice is a great deal easier than listening with open ears, heart and mind.

And so to Lethe.

1st: Ego or Id?

2005-11-21T02:22:00.000Z

And so we begin.
~
I am who I am but that is not what I am.
~
I do not care for your opinions
of my behaviours
of my speech
of my thoughts
of me.
~
I care not.
~
Remember that
~