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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By this, sad Hero, with love unacquainted,
Viewing Leander’s face, fell down and fainted.
He kissed her and breathed life into her lips,
Wherewith as one displeased away she trips.
Yet, as she went, full often looked behind,
And many poor excuses did she find
To linger by the way, and once she stayed,
And would have turned again, but was afraid,
In offering parley, to be counted light.
So on she goes and in her idle flight
Her painted fan of curled plumes let fall,
Thinking to train Leander therewithal.
He, being a novice, knew not what she meant
But stayed, and after her a letter sent,
Which joyful Hero answered in such sort,
As he had hope to scale the beauteous fort
Wherein the liberal Graces locked their wealth,
And therefore to her tower he got by stealth.
Wide open stood the door, he need not climb,
And she herself before the pointed time
Had spread the board, with roses strowed the room,
And oft looked out, and mused he did not come.
At last he came.

O who can tell the greeting
These greedy lovers had at their first meeting.
He asked, she gave, and nothing was denied.
Both to each other quickly were affied.
Look how their hands, so were their hearts united,
And what he did she willingly requited.
(Sweet are the kisses, the embracements sweet,
When like desires and affections meet,
For from the earth to heaven is Cupid raised,
Where fancy is in equal balance peised.)
Yet she this rashness suddenly repented
And turned aside, and to herself lamented
As if her name and honour had been wronged
By being possessed of him for whom she longed.
Ay, and she wished, albeit not from her heart
That he would leave her turret and depart.
The mirthful god of amorous pleasure smiled
To see how he this captive nymph beguiled.
For hitherto he did but fan the fire,
And kept it down that it might mount the higher.
Now waxed she jealous lest his love abated,
Fearing her own thoughts made her to be hated.
Therefore unto him hastily she goes
And, like light Salmacis, her body throws
Upon his ***** where with yielding eyes
She offers up herself a sacrifice
To slake his anger if he were displeased.
O, what god would not therewith be appeased?
Like Aesop’s **** this jewel he enjoyed
And as a brother with his sister toyed
Supposing nothing else was to be done,
Now he her favour and good will had won.
But know you not that creatures wanting sense
By nature have a mutual appetence,
And, wanting organs to advance a step,
Moved by love’s force unto each other lep?
Much more in subjects having intellect
Some hidden influence breeds like effect.
Albeit Leander rude in love and raw,
Long dallying with Hero, nothing saw
That might delight him more, yet he suspected
Some amorous rites or other were neglected.
Therefore unto his body hers he clung.
She, fearing on the rushes to be flung,
Strived with redoubled strength; the more she strived
The more a gentle pleasing heat revived,
Which taught him all that elder lovers know.
And now the same gan so to scorch and glow
As in plain terms (yet cunningly) he craved it.
Love always makes those eloquent that have it.
She, with a kind of granting, put him by it
And ever, as he thought himself most nigh it,
Like to the tree of Tantalus, she fled
And, seeming lavish, saved her maidenhead.
Ne’er king more sought to keep his diadem,
Than Hero this inestimable gem.
Above our life we love a steadfast friend,
Yet when a token of great worth we send,
We often kiss it, often look thereon,
And stay the messenger that would be gone.
No marvel then, though Hero would not yield
So soon to part from that she dearly held.
Jewels being lost are found again, this never;
’Tis lost but once, and once lost, lost forever.

Now had the morn espied her lover’s steeds,
Whereat she starts, puts on her purple weeds,
And red for anger that he stayed so long
All headlong throws herself the clouds among.
And now Leander, fearing to be missed,
Embraced her suddenly, took leave, and kissed.
Long was he taking leave, and loath to go,
And kissed again as lovers use to do.
Sad Hero wrung him by the hand and wept
Saying, “Let your vows and promises be kept.”
Then standing at the door she turned about
As loath to see Leander going out.
And now the sun that through th’ horizon peeps,
As pitying these lovers, downward creeps,
So that in silence of the cloudy night,
Though it was morning, did he take his flight.
But what the secret trusty night concealed
Leander’s amorous habit soon revealed.
With Cupid’s myrtle was his bonnet crowned,
About his arms the purple riband wound
Wherewith she wreathed her largely spreading hair.
Nor could the youth abstain, but he must wear
The sacred ring wherewith she was endowed
When first religious chastity she vowed.
Which made his love through Sestos to be known,
And thence unto Abydos sooner blown
Than he could sail; for incorporeal fame
Whose weight consists in nothing but her name,
Is swifter than the wind, whose tardy plumes
Are reeking water and dull earthly fumes.
Home when he came, he seemed not to be there,
But, like exiled air ****** from his sphere,
Set in a foreign place; and straight from thence,
Alcides like, by mighty violence
He would have chased away the swelling main
That him from her unjustly did detain.
Like as the sun in a diameter
Fires and inflames objects removed far,
And heateth kindly, shining laterally,
So beauty sweetly quickens when ’tis nigh,
But being separated and removed,
Burns where it cherished, murders where it loved.
Therefore even as an index to a book,
So to his mind was young Leander’s look.
O, none but gods have power their love to hide,
Affection by the countenance is descried.
The light of hidden fire itself discovers,
And love that is concealed betrays poor lovers,
His secret flame apparently was seen.
Leander’s father knew where he had been
And for the same mildly rebuked his son,
Thinking to quench the sparkles new begun.
But love resisted once grows passionate,
And nothing more than counsel lovers hate.
For as a hot proud horse highly disdains
To have his head controlled, but breaks the reins,
Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hooves
Checks the submissive ground; so he that loves,
The more he is restrained, the worse he fares.
What is it now, but mad Leander dares?
“O Hero, Hero!” thus he cried full oft;
And then he got him to a rock aloft,
Where having spied her tower, long stared he on’t,
And prayed the narrow toiling Hellespont
To part in twain, that he might come and go;
But still the rising billows answered, “No.”
With that he stripped him to the ivory skin
And, crying “Love, I come,” leaped lively in.
Whereat the sapphire visaged god grew proud,
And made his capering Triton sound aloud,
Imagining that Ganymede, displeased,
Had left the heavens; therefore on him he seized.
Leander strived; the waves about him wound,
And pulled him to the bottom, where the ground
Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves
Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves
On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure
To spurn in careless sort the shipwrack treasure.
For here the stately azure palace stood
Where kingly Neptune and his train abode.
The ***** god embraced him, called him “Love,”
And swore he never should return to Jove.
But when he knew it was not Ganymede,
For under water he was almost dead,
He heaved him up and, looking on his face,
Beat down the bold waves with his triple mace,
Which mounted up, intending to have kissed him,
And fell in drops like tears because they missed him.
Leander, being up, began to swim
And, looking back, saw Neptune follow him,
Whereat aghast, the poor soul ‘gan to cry
“O, let me visit Hero ere I die!”
The god put Helle’s bracelet on his arm,
And swore the sea should never do him harm.
He clapped his plump cheeks, with his tresses played
And, smiling wantonly, his love bewrayed.
He watched his arms and, as they opened wide
At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide
And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance,
And, as he turned, cast many a lustful glance,
And threw him gaudy toys to please his eye,
And dive into the water, and there pry
Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb,
And up again, and close beside him swim,
And talk of love.

Leander made reply,
“You are deceived; I am no woman, I.”
Thereat smiled Neptune, and then told a tale,
How that a shepherd, sitting in a vale,
Played with a boy so fair and kind,
As for his love both earth and heaven pined;
That of the cooling river durst not drink,
Lest water nymphs should pull him from the brink.
And when he sported in the fragrant lawns,
Goat footed satyrs and upstaring fauns
Would steal him thence. Ere half this tale was done,
“Ay me,” Leander cried, “th’ enamoured sun
That now should shine on Thetis’ glassy bower,
Descends upon my radiant Hero’s tower.
O, that these tardy arms of mine were wings!”
And, as he spake, upon the waves he springs.
Neptune was angry that he gave no ear,
And in his heart revenging malice bare.
He flung at him his mace but, as it went,
He called it in, for love made him repent.
The mace, returning back, his own hand hit
As meaning to be venged for darting it.
When this fresh bleeding wound Leander viewed,
His colour went and came, as if he rued
The grief which Neptune felt. In gentle *******
Relenting thoughts, remorse, and pity rests.
And who have hard hearts and obdurate minds,
But vicious, harebrained, and illiterate hinds?
The god, seeing him with pity to be moved,
Thereon concluded that he was beloved.
(Love is too full of faith, too credulous,
With folly and false hope deluding us.)
Wherefore, Leander’s fancy to surprise,
To the rich Ocean for gifts he flies.
’tis wisdom to give much; a gift prevails
When deep persuading oratory fails.

By this Leander, being near the land,
Cast down his weary feet and felt the sand.
Breathless albeit he were he rested not
Till to the solitary tower he got,
And knocked and called. At which celestial noise
The longing heart of Hero much more joys
Than nymphs and shepherds when the timbrel rings,
Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings.
She stayed not for her robes but straight arose
And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes,
Where seeing a naked man, she screeched for fear
(Such sights as this to tender maids are rare)
And ran into the dark herself to hide.
(Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied).
Unto her was he led, or rather drawn
By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn.
The nearer that he came, the more she fled,
And, seeking refuge, slipped into her bed.
Whereon Leander sitting thus began,
Through numbing cold, all feeble, faint, and wan.
“If not for love, yet, love, for pity sake,
Me in thy bed and maiden ***** take.
At least vouchsafe these arms some little room,
Who, hoping to embrace thee, cheerly swum.
This head was beat with many a churlish billow,
And therefore let it rest upon thy pillow.”
Herewith affrighted, Hero shrunk away,
And in her lukewarm place Leander lay,
Whose lively heat, like fire from heaven fet,
Would animate gross clay and higher set
The drooping thoughts of base declining souls
Than dreary Mars carousing nectar bowls.
His hands he cast upon her like a snare.
She, overcome with shame and sallow fear,
Like chaste Diana when Actaeon spied her,
Being suddenly betrayed, dived down to hide her.
And, as her silver body downward went,
With both her hands she made the bed a tent,
And in her own mind thought herself secure,
O’ercast with dim and darksome coverture.
And now she lets him whisper in her ear,
Flatter, entreat, promise, protest and swear;
Yet ever, as he greedily assayed
To touch those dainties, she the harpy played,
And every limb did, as a soldier stout,
Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out.
For though the rising ivory mount he scaled,
Which is with azure circling lines empaled,
Much like a globe (a globe may I term this,
By which love sails to regions full of bliss)
Yet there with Sisyphus he toiled in vain,
Till gentle parley did the truce obtain.
Wherein Leander on her quivering breast
Breathless spoke something, and sighed out the rest;
Which so prevailed, as he with small ado
Enclosed her in his arms and kissed her too.
And every kiss to her was as a charm,
And to Leander as a fresh alarm,
So that the truce was broke and she, alas,
(Poor silly maiden) at his mercy was.
Love is not full of pity (as men say)
But deaf and cruel where he means to prey.
Even as a bird, which in our hands we wring,
Forth plungeth and oft flutters with her wing,
She trembling strove.

This strife of hers (like that
Which made the world) another world begat
Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought,
And cunningly to yield herself she sought.
Seeming not won, yet won she was at length.
In such wars women use but half their strength.
Leander now, like Theban Hercules,
Entered the orchard of th’ Hesperides;
Whose fruit none rightly can describe but he
That pulls or shakes it from the golden tree.
And now she wished this night were never done,
And sighed to think upon th’ approaching sun;
For much it grieved her that the bright daylight
Should know the pleasure of this blessed night,
And them, like Mars and Erycine, display
Both in each other’s arms chained as they lay.
Again, she knew not how to frame her look,
Or speak to him, who in a moment took
That which so long so charily she kept,
And fain by stealth away she would have crept,
And to some corner secretly have gone,
Leaving Leander in the bed alone.
But as her naked feet were whipping out,
He on the sudden clinged her so about,
That, mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid.
One half appeared, the other half was hid.
Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright,
And from her countenance behold ye might
A kind of twilight break, which through the hair,
As from an orient cloud, glimpsed here and there,
And round about the chamber this false morn
Brought forth the day before the day was born.
So Hero’s ruddy cheek Hero betrayed,
And her all naked to his sight displayed,
Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took
Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look.
By this, Apollo’s golden harp began
To sound forth music to the ocean,
Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard
But he the bright day-bearing car prepared
And ran before, as harbinger of light,
And with his flaring beams mocked ugly night,
Till she, o’ercome with anguish, shame, and rage,
Danged down to hell her loathsome carriage.

Returned flush with excitement,
From a ten mile bike ride,
On a day near perfect,
Out along the river,

Temp in mid seventy's
not a cloud in the sky.

Beside the river I ride,
the water summer calm flat,
Scents of wet mossy rocks,
and dogwood trees non relenting.
The perfume of the Valley,
the River damp, sweet and pure.

Ride as I did the trails,
some on paved surface.
most on wood chips and dirt.

Shifting gears to suit the,
changing terrain and the
resources within my aged knees.  

The wind from my speed,
blows refreshingly in my face,
Dark glasses slipping down my nose,
yet keeping sun glare from blinding.

I pass some people,
I smile and wave,
they reply in kind,
Maybe we even
exchange brief
verbal greetings,
Some lost in a blur
of movement.

Easy for us all to smile,
we are happy in our work.

Half way there,
I stop for a drink,
Ease my burning legs.
The spot I pick is under  
cover of a huge old walnut tree.
It's massive umbrella shade,
an embracing sanctuary.

Across the way, a little lake,
On the far bank there stands a
metal skeleton outline of three
buildings that once stood there.
This recreated site of the first
European settlement in Oregon,
Clear back in the year of 1837.

Methodist Missionaries they
were, came overland West,
from North East by wagon.
Bringing so they thought,
Needed "Civilization" to the
poor "heathens" here about.
Almost as always a very,
mistaken, arrogant notion.

There effort lasted only
four years, the locals
responding not so well to
their well intending invitation.

In historical retrospect,
one can not but applaud
their self scarifies, hardship
and strife, some of them even
died still trying.

However they did open
the door, to a new beginning,
Be it for good or ill.
Soon other settlers
made the long journey.
Becoming "Oregon Or Bust"
for many.  

As I reflect sitting beneath
this tree those early people
no doubt planted,
from seed or sapling,
brought so far to this
new land of beginning.
It stands here still,
176 years later,
a wonderful living,
still growing testament
to human efforts of trying.

The breeze livens,
stirs sweet pungent
scents of brackish water,
forest, and Valley,
hints of crocus,
ripe black berries and
summer flowers blooming,
All these scents mingle,
and grow ever stronger.

Off in the near distance,
a strengthening breeze whispers,
Approaching through forest trees
coming ever closer and nearer.
Reaching me in a refreshing
gust that lasts for only a minute.
The sweat upon my face
cooling at it's touch. As I smile,
in grateful acknowledgement.

I have seen this day,
two kinds of squirrels
one red, one grey colored.
Coveys' of doves taking flight,
from my approaching bike,
And birds of many description,
A Red Tailed Hawk on wing,
Harassed by two small pursuit birds
protecting their nests from him.
A huge Bald Eagle diving for fish.
And one of my very favorites,
a spindly legged Blue Heron.
Standing in mud, fishing.
Even a smart fox,
scurrying back to hide
in the foliage, too shy
and too fast to be viewed
for too long by a human.

Thankful as I am,
for this one more
glorious day of living,
In the ***** of nature
so inspiring, so splendid.
I embrace Life and in return,
it grants me, continuation.

I plan on returning soon,
maybe tomorrow if my legs
let me.

Your body
Is a creation of the galaxies
A coming together of milky ways and solar flares

When I first saw you, I was stunned
At the sheer amount of stardust it would take
To make something that beautiful

Your body
Is a glass case
Struggling to hold rivers in your veins
Herds of wild horses in your chest
The monarch migration in your stomach

Slowly you are cracking
The glass relenting to the spirit it cannot hold
But when it breaks you will not hurt
You will be free

Mad in the furnace
of the mind;
mad in a hurricane
of despair;
mad in a meltingpot
of depressions -
time floods forth
in a total absence
far from reality
as cerebral fires
gust into one
panic attack
after the other -

there is no relenting,
there is no relenting,
there is no relenting......

It’s the kind of subtle trickle
That turns the asphalt into a glassy mirror
Ripples, ripples, ripples
Over it like a black pond
The silver lining of each little droplet
Streaking the sky with shades of gray
The streetlights cast an amber glow
Upon the shimmering mist
Hiss, hiss, hiss
Against your stinging flesh
Turn your face up towards the darkened sky
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash away the dust
The dust of the souls you carry on your lips and cheeks
Etched into your back and palms
Their burdens may cause you aches and pains
Let the rainfall and streetlights wash them away
Rainfall and streetlights
Rainfall and streetlights
An urban confessional
Where the sky leans in to listen
As every perfect drop of water hits your skin
It’s the sound of a cleansing
Only you can comprehend
And although the hope of purity may have been swept away
by the wind of unfixable mistakes
It’s still the belief alone in possible redemption
That keeps you from relenting to temptation
Drink up the tears of the sky, child
You are forgiven
You were always forgiven
After all
Paths were made to be strayed from
Straight lines are mundane, they all look the same
And never give a little boy glass when you haven’t taught him
how to grasp what’s right in front of him
When he drops it
It’s a dangerous job
Picking up the sharp shattered pieces
Do not make him do it all alone
Yes, inevitably you will cut yourself
On the broken shards
Crimson teardrops
If they tumble from you
Do not distrust your calluses
You made them through your own hard work and suffering
But they can only do so much for you
Remember your skin is a shell not impenetrable armor
So it’s best to avoid the things you know will cut unnecessarily deep
Bleeding is just another way your body assures you that your heart is still beating
Looking up from the gutter the universe awaits you child
Do you not realize what’s at your fingertips?
Infinity
So don’t give in just yet
Let the rainfall and streetlights heal you
Drip drop, drip drop
Let them bathe you in warmth
Radiating
Let the rainfall and streetlights take you away
To a better place
Wherever that may be

Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on—
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,

He is ever drifted on
O’er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe’er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ’twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.

On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O’er the billows of the gale;
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp and fratricides:
Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.

Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
’Mid the mountains Euganean
I stood listening to the paean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all ****,
Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day’s azure eyes
Ocean’s nursling, Venice, lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.

Sea-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death
O’er the waters of his path.

Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aereal gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would imagine not they were
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms,
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou ldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they!—
Clouds which stain truth’s rising day
By her sun consumed away—
Earth can spare ye; while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring
With more kindly blossoming.

Perish—let there only be
Floating o’er thy heartless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;—
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the sons of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O’er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror:—what though yet
Poesy’s unfailing River,
Which through Albion winds forever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet’s grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander’s wasting springs;
As divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fills Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality;
As the love from Petrarch’s urn,
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;—so thou art,
Mighty spirit—so shall be
The City that did refuge thee.

Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud
Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
’Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a **** whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region’s foison,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction’s harvest-home:
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.

Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,
Till Death cried, “I win, I win!”
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o’er,
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.
She smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, ay, long before,
Both have ruled from shore to shore,—
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time.

In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world’s might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by Tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells,
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!

Noon descends around me now:
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vapourous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of Heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,—
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.

Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like winged winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.

Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing Paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.

        Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
        Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
        Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
        The short and simple annals of the poor.
                  (Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”)

  My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!
      No mercenary bard his homage pays;
    With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:
      My dearest meed a friend’s esteem and praise.
      To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
    The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene;
      The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
    What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween!

  November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh,
      The short’ning winter day is near a close;
    The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh,
      The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose;
    The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,—
    This night his weekly moil is at an end,—
      Collects his spades, his mattocks and his hoes,
    Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

  At length his lonely cot appears in view,
      Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
    Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
      To meet their dad, wi’ flichterin noise an’ glee.
      His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
    His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,
      The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
    Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
An’ makes him quite forget his labour an’ his toil.

  Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
      At service out, amang the farmers roun’;
    Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
      A cannie errand to a neibor toun:
      Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
    In youthfu’ bloom, love sparkling in her e’e,
      Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown,
    Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

  With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
      An’ each for other’s weelfare kindly spiers:
    The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet;
      Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
      The parents partial eye their hopeful years;
    Anticipation forward points the view;
      The mother, wi’ her needle an’ her sheers,
    Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.

  Their master’s an’ their mistress’s command
      The younkers a’ are warned to obey;
    An’ mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,
      An’ ne’er tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play:
      “An’ O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
    An’ mind your duty, duly, morn an’ night!
      Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,
    Implore his counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!”

  But hark! a rap comes gently to the door.
      Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same,
    Tells how a neebor lad cam o’er the moor,
      To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
      The wily mother sees the conscious flame
    Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek;
      Wi’ heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name,
      While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel-pleas’d the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake.

  Wi’ kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben,
      A strappin youth; he takes the mother’s eye;
    Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill taen;
      The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
      The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy,
    But, blate and laithfu’, scarce can weel behave;
      The mother wi’ a woman’s wiles can spy
    What maks the youth sae bashfu’ an’ sae grave,
Weel pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave.

  O happy love! where love like this is found!
      O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
    I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round,
      And sage experience bids me this declare—
    “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
      One cordial in this melancholy vale,
      ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
    In other’s arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev’ning gale.”

  Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
      A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
    That can with studied, sly, ensnaring art
      Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth?
      Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth!
    Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d?
      Is there no pity, no relenting truth,
    Points to the parents fondling o’er their child,
Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild?

  But now the supper crowns their simple board,
      The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food;
    The soupe their only hawkie does afford,
      That yont the hallan snugly chows her cud.
      The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
    To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck fell,
      An’ aft he’s prest, an’ aft he ca’s it guid;
    The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
How ’twas a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell.

  The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,
      They round the ingle form a circle wide;
    The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace,
      The big ha’-Bible, ance his father’s pride;
      His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside,
    His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
      Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
    He wales a portion with judicious care;
And, “Let us worship God,” he says with solemn air.

  They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
      They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
    Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise,
      Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
      Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
    The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays.
      Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame;
      The tickl’d ear no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they, with our Creator’s praise.

  The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
      How Abram was the friend of God on high;
    Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
      With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
      Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
    Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
      Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
    Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

  Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
      How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
    How He, who bore in Heaven the second name
      Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
      How His first followers and servants sped;
    The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
      How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
    Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.

  Then kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
      The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
    Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,”
      That thus they all shall meet in future days:
      There ever bask in uncreated rays,
    No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
      Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
    In such society, yet still more dear,
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.

  Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride
      In all the pomp of method and of art,
    When men display to congregations wide
      Devotion’s ev’ry grace except the heart!
      The Pow’r, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
    The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
      But haply in some cottage far apart
    May hear, well pleas’d, the language of the soul,
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

  Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
      The youngling cottagers retire to rest;
    The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
      And proffer up to Heav’n the warm request,
      That He who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
    And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
      Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
    For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

  From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
      That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
    Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
      “An honest man’s the noblest work of God”:
      And certes, in fair Virtue’s heavenly road,
    The cottage leaves the palace far behind:
      What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,
    Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!

  O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
      For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
    Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
      Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
      And, oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
    From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!
      Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
    A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.

  O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide
      That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart,
    Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
      Or nobly die, the second glorious part,—
      (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art,
    His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
      O never, never Scotia’s realm desert,
    But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

Ciao to the world. . .my hand is free. . .
hope to penetrate all your misery. . .
stand on beside you feeling my glee. . .
what them can't I can't see, we both can just be. . .
Happy and free. . . .

Ciao to the world. . .where do you see?
Unspeakable motions relenting through notions. . .
That you are the world and I am the world. . .
Ride up beside planted come tree. . .
Choosing to sense, what life doesn't chance. . .
If was so easy to speak without kissing the *****. . .
Learning together, binded by teather on unspeacable measure. . . .

Ciao to the world. . .
What pleasure do feel?
Sensations at leasure, stranded by seasure.
What is so pure then to run with a cure, of being you just you, and I just me. . .
When it doesn't matter. . .
For we are and can be, and always I sensed that, friends with the power to smile on the world. . . .

Ciao to the world. . .
Do you smile on yourself?
Getting it clearer, this sense that's titer so nearer. . .
so great of a mystery as to what cost it in history. . .
What paused it about among,
domeneering a crowd. . .
that ****** on that history and made life this lost mystery. . .

Ciao to the world.. .
It's so great that I see you. . .
Peeling your skin to taste on your roots. . .
Feeling my life has strapped on its boots. . .
what is so moving,
Is something no one can keep you in life from disproving. . .
For this is the part that always puts on the spot,
what idea is given as the source of this proving?

Ciao to the world. . .
Why we need for such pusher, who can't but press on for the moocher?. . .
And feed to the world what we don't aspire,
some even becoming blind to how life truly feels.
Because of what shameful desire it instills. . .
so they take flight to the hills, running their bills,
killing the time without the conception that people of each one's own doesn't need redemption from such a parole. . .
Derived from an old point of a hunt for the dead sea scroll. . . .

Ciao to the world. . .
Where in these hills do we ever tumble under strains,
put down under mockingly with such assumptive pains?
Who in the **** disallows what we all grow so heartedly to cherish,
and then take on to fight against what we don't embellish?
For sake of each one our own, blown from where we inspire,
life is but for pleasure and desire, for, to in happiness respire.
There isn't but hell in this place, in which we feel to replace. . .
Bit by bit, but always making it harder for in this pace, it's such a miserable and unfortunate case. . .
Of greed in its haste, molding most souls into waste.

Ciao to the world. . .
Where in the hell did you go in this haste,
loosing the sense of what built you in the first place?
Not God, nor feeble men,
but love for certain aspirations of good to make this world an ease for many admirations.
For centuries to come, where we behold on in under one world of pleasant desire to fullfill all that we were fighting for,
mirror image of what freedom by hearts could implore.
Sincerely we never need be, for some it's just an ease,
to want always please into the self, stand on top of the shelf like a beaten up trophy headed for disastrous catastrophy.. . .

Ciao to the world. . .
I'm sit in Jardin du Luxembourg. . .Where life is full of smorgesbourg, all we are so different, relenting to one thing of beauty of the peace and quite that we want always beside, be.
How this little part of the world in larger then life city of Paris,
won't stand all around for a day say on the other side of the planet,
because some would want for it to be a glamour for riches drowned in their clamour.. . .

Ciao to the world. . .
I'm sit by a stranger. . .Do you think I feel danger?
Do you see what's even a mistake, life is something not quiet so fake, even when you give a chance to let one other have the better miser dance,
given the glance with such bitter pretense is worth even to chance?

Ciao to the world. . .
I'm gather on all of my new experience. . .Better perciever then most think im deceiver. . .
When who is better then being the deceiver?
Is one getting by, the best of the deceiver. . . .slaughtered at the mind by vivid perception,
because in all case life has taught nonsense ridden by selfish perception of ones own misdirection. ..

Ciao to the world. . .
I'm satisfied to be pleasant without the need for so much in life,
all but to gather on what life is so abundant,
all the smiling faces passing with haste paces, from so many different places. . . . .

I
I greeted you, my inevitable day
In this shaky firmness of my hands;
Assuring me of my weakness; the languidity of my serene constitution.
The sky smeared with fright,undeed, and look, hark to how the sun closed the night!
This was but unpalatable dew, misty in its impatient greyness
Avidity for genuine sorrow and late confessions
The calm heart then wronged, and soon the war touched the light!

II
Beware of love, o silly hearts!
Loving thoughts, are indeed averse to relenting;
albeit they are always leading to smirks and destitution.
Release thy grains from yon grievous chain!
Spark thy wings, heave and bend!
Wear thy glee, ere any of the gruesome tears remain!
Shield thy mask with greater abhorrence!

III
O notions, fruit my doom and feed my sight!
From womanly misery I yet ought to emerge
and all its surly sleeves I ought to blight!

IV
O peace, fetch for me my untaught breath in vain
Keep me steady, ditch me not in the rain!
Tend me more, yet not my cheerful friend-
in pleasures whom thrives, in virtues was whom foolish!
Praising plaited hairs, swept amidst folded skirts.
Gruesome lies they carry, the finest they conspire to marry;
what a horrid, unalterable, evil concoction!
Yet pureness is the only that deserves awe;
virgins are a symbol of unrequited love, but tenderest affection!
However lonesome, hither and thither I shall bear this pain
Until my stern heart melted to love again.

Damaged trust and marriage schemes
Held hostage in each others' dreams
Pinned to walls but flailing still
Forgotten values, failing wills
True love waits, we tell ourselves
True love gladly stacks the shelves
True love sets conditions and
True love does the dishes and
Slowly, slowly, we forget
Just why we're here and who we met
Another notch in wrinkled frowns
Where I keep getting lost and found
In roller-coaster ups and downs
I'm lost and lost and lost and found

Missing flights and toxic tongues
Catharsis found in tar-filled lungs
I lost myself in who I wasn't
And in what true love does and doesn't
Not quite gaslit, not quite safe
Playing back the ancient tape
We envy death for constancy-
Besmirching our own consciences
We forgo our emoluments
Too traumatized by precedents
But hush you tell me, no one knows
The pretzel-bending ways we grow
Forever twisting round and round
Lost and lost and lost and found

Now freaking out, now breaking down
Now glaciers found in evening gowns
Now agonizing 'Who am I?'s
Now dying fire in your eyes
At last the sunset settles debts
We tally up our last regrets
Relenting to incessant ghosts
Abandoning essential posts
'Til all that's left is loss and hurt
It burns and burns and burns and burns
And now I choke on orders filled
And mourn alone the youth we killed
I scrape the comb across my nettles
Pricking feelings, bleeding mettle
Finally free from ups and downs,
I find myself on solid ground

I love her.

Basic in it's being.
As such is the keeping of it.

A thesis to the "ins" and "outs."
The "ups" and "downs."
The "all abouts."

An equation of this and that.
In direct proportion to the simplicity of directional momentum...

So do we conclude,
equal complexity
to that which was not spoken.

To that which was kept.

Only relenting to a factor of time.

From which
the variable of existence
can evolve itself.

In and of itself.

Long ago in a poultry yard
One dull November morn,
Beneath a motherly soft wing
A little goose was born.

Who straightway peeped out of the shell
To view the world beyond,
Longing at once to sally forth
And paddle in the pond.

"Oh! be not rash," her father said,
A mild Socratic bird;
Her mother begged her not to stray
With many a warning word.

But little goosey was perverse,
And eagerly did cry,
"I've got a lovely pair of wings,
Of course I ought to fly."

In vain parental cacklings,
In vain the cold sky's frown,
Ambitious goosey tried to soar,
But always tumbled down.

The farmyard jeered at her attempts,
The peacocks screamed, "Oh fie!
You're only a domestic goose,
So don't pretend to fly."

Great ****-a-doodle from his perch
Crowed daily loud and clear,
"Stay in the puddle, foolish bird,
That is your proper sphere,"

The ducks and hens said, one and all,
In gossip by the pool,
"Our children never play such pranks;
My dear, that fowl's a fool."

The owls came out and flew about,
Hooting above the rest,
"No useful egg was ever hatched
From transcendental nest."

Good little goslings at their play
And well-conducted chicks
Were taught to think poor goosey's flights
Were naughty, ill-bred tricks.

They were content to swim and scratch,
And not at all inclined
For any wild goose chase in search
Of something undefined.

Hard times she had as one may guess,
That young aspiring bird,
Who still from every fall arose
Saddened but undeterred.

She knew she was no nightingale
Yet spite of much abuse,
She longed to help and cheer the world,
Although a plain gray goose

She could not sing, she could not fly,
Nor even walk, with grace,
And all the farmyard had declared
A puddle was her place.

But something stronger than herself
Would cry, "Go on, go on!
Remember, though an humble fowl,
You're cousin to a swan."

So up and down poor goosey went,
A busy, hopeful bird.
Searched many wide unfruitful fields,
And many waters stirred.

At length she came unto a stream
Most fertile of all Niles,
Where tuneful birds might soar and sing
Among the leafy isles.

Here did she build a little nest
Beside the waters still,
Where the parental goose could rest
Unvexed by any bill.

And here she paused to smooth her plumes,
Ruffled by many plagues;
When suddenly arose the cry,
"This goose lays golden eggs."

At once the farmyard was agog;
The ducks began to quack;
Prim Guinea fowls relenting called,
"Come back, come back, come back."

Great chanticleer was pleased to give
A patronizing crow,
And the contemptuous biddies clucked,
"I wish my chicks did so."

The peacocks spread their shining tails,
And cried in accents soft,
"We want to know you, gifted one,
Come up and sit aloft."

Wise owls awoke and gravely said,
With proudly swelling *******,
"Rare birds have always been evoked
From transcendental nests!"

News-hunting turkeys from afar
Now ran with all thin legs
To gobble facts and fictions of
The goose with golden eggs.

But best of all the little fowls
Still playing on the shore,
Soft downy chicks and goslings gay,
Chirped out, "Dear Goose, lay more."

But goosey all these weary years
Had toiled like any ant,
And wearied out she now replied
"My little dears, I can't.

"When I was starving, half this corn
Had been of vital use,
Now I am surfeited with food
Like any Strasbourg goose."

So to escape too many friends,
Without uncivil strife,
She ran to the Atlantic pond
And paddled for her life.

Soon up among the grand old Alps
She found two blessed things,
The health she had so nearly lost,
And rest for weary limbs.

But still across the briny deep
Couched in most friendly words,
Came prayers for letters, tales, or verse
From literary birds.

Whereat the renovated fowl
With grateful thanks profuse,
Took from her wing a quill and wrote
This lay of a Golden Goose.

Panic's jewel...
Or, is that pride?
Poor relenting, to you...
The question of irony on your side?

Places and things, together
With a real appetite for life's regency
So, sophisticated, the liberty of kind to bother
An open air, of a wish that found deception's history...?

My undone mercy, my marveling hope
Is with a ghost of a chance, the truth
In a guarded fist, to promise a shared cope?
If any pout of lore, is a wish that sought your youth...

I will follow...
Despairing consciences, with a blinking stare at honor
That defies home for one thing only, that is to harrow...
The dread in a tear, found for a salt that told a story:

Once upon a time, and the tenderness of couth
To wake upon a simple bed, the taste of harmony in league
With itself, the role of unity and vice, come the riches of who
Is a part defined, and who is a smarter focus divine, of each?

Which will the tows of remorse...
Work as we said, they have the skill's of duress to laud
And heraldry of a looming proportion, to understand the worse
The life of another lords prophet, the can and the callous odd...

Here is such, the lies or levity we fate
With a rekindled fire, for what is a stranger look, of desperation
Sincerity or since charity is a fool for itself, the world of sate
Is a kindness only a lover could afford, the very gift of intimation?

Tomorrow?
And the ides of heathen politeness, are here
To simply move forward and borrow
The truth in an order and repute, that has oneself to bless, with another's fear...?

My eyes alight softly upon pale velvet waxing
Whose grace is as weightless as a tilting feather
Slowly orbiting between gentle arches
Caressing the space that separates two hearts
And minds locked in a tidal waltz

Waning, my gaze shifts to supple curves
Outlining the crescent shaped body
Which loving light reflects in full
As the beats of my pulse rapidly impact
Scaring the surface with my every rotation
That births a new phase with every rise
Yet sets my sights again upon distant beauty
Teasing the mind to reach out and embrace my muse
Relenting to the gravity ever drawing me nearer
Until we collide in throes of violent passion
Two bodies merging in the fires of love
To become one forever more

How to describe that moment when we wake at last?
Tentatively emerging from the comfortable cocoon of that early, endless summer
****** into a cold, vibrant land, full of beauty and pain
Equipped with a newfound vigor but fueled by our disillusionment

Here, in the infancy of our societal influence
Fresh off a restful bout of childhood ignorance
We take aim to preserve that magic, for as long as we can
We dance in the summer rain, so it might not fade away…

But when do we lose focus?
When do we become,
The target of long lost laughter,
relenting to the forces of absurdity?

Perhaps when our world comes crashing down
With the weight of a thousand suns
When purity falls prey to the stalking darkness
That lives in the darkened mire

We’re all lost souls in this garden world
As our sanity stumbles with each passing season
From a fleeting glimpse at beauty in the warmth of the spring
to our frozen heart from winter’s endless pain

What is it we really want then?
As we wake up dreaming of a peaceful life,
of blue skies, and free-flowing thoughts
in the warm embrace of a sun-kissed day

But out of darkness, fear does grow
Those memories seem so far away.
Saddled with willing acts of complacency
We trudge on, immune to our nagging decency

For as we stand on the edge of the abyss
Faced by the power of the absurd
We can’t help but look down
Into the unrelenting grimace of finality

Can we recapture, moments lost, memories fallen
from the hardened heart of our war-torn soul?
For deep inside, perhaps we’ll find
A glimpse at a forgotten past

Might we gather one last breath,
A passing whiff of that summer day
So long ago, when we dreamt of a greater purpose and when magic
Enveloped our reality with the warm embrace of mystery and intrigue

Might we realize then that pain makes beauty?
And as we stand on the edge of the abyss
Trading a summer daydream
For a midnight reverie

We take a step back…

Day of Satan's painful duty! Dies iræ! dies illa!
Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty; Solvet sæclum in favilla
So says Virtue, so says Beauty. ***** David *** Sibylla.
Ah! what terror shall be shaping Quantus tremor est futurus,
When the Judge the truth's undraping-- Quando Judex est venturus.
Cats from every bag escaping! Cuncta stricte discussurus.
Now the trumpet's invocation Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Calls the dead to condemnation; Per sepulchra regionem,
All receive an invitation. Coget omnes ante thronum.

Death and Nature now are quaking, Mors stupebit, et Natura,

And the late lamented, waking, Quum resurget creatura

In their breezy shrouds are shaking. Judicanti responsura.

Lo! the Ledger's leaves are stirring, Liber scriptus proferetur,

And the Clerk, to them referring, In quo totum continetur,

Makes it awkward for the erring. Unde mundus judicetur.

When the Judge appears in session, Judex ergo quum sedebit,

We shall all attend confession, Quicquid latet apparebit,

Loudly preaching non-suppression. Nil inultum remanebit.

How shall I then make romances Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,

Mitigating circumstances? Quem patronem rogaturus,

Even the just must take their chances. Quum vix justus sit securus?

King whose majesty amazes, Rex tremendæ majestatis,

Save thou him who sings thy praises; Qui salvandos salvas gratis;

Fountain, quench my private blazes. Salva me, Fons pietatis.

Pray remember, sacred Saviour, Recordare, Jesu pie,

Mine the playful hand that gave your Quod sum causa tuæ viæ;

Death-blow. Pardon such behavior. Ne me perdas illa die.

Seeking me, fatigue assailed thee, Quærens me sedisti lassus

Calvary's outlook naught availed thee; Redemisti crucem passus,

Now 'twere cruel if I failed thee. Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Righteous judge and learnèd brother, Juste Judex ultionis,

Pray thy prejudices smother Donum fac remissionis

Ere we meet to try each other. Ante diem rationis.

Sighs of guilt my conscience gushes, Ingemisco tanquam reus,

And my face vermilion flushes; Culpa rubet vultus meus;

Spare me for my pretty blushes. Supplicanti parce, Deus.

Thief and harlot, when repenting, Qui Mariam absolvisti,

Thou forgavest--complimenting Et latronem exaudisti,

Me with sign of like relenting. Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

If too bold is my petition Preces meæ non sunt dignæ,

I'll receive with due submission Sed to bonus fac benigne

My dismissal--from perdition. Ne perenni cremer igne.

When thy sheep thou hast selected Inter oves locum præsta.

From the goats, may I, respected, Et ab hædis me sequestra,

Stand amongst them undetected. Statuens in parte dextra.

When offenders are indited, Confutatis maledictis,

And with trial-flames ignited, Flammis acribus addictis,

Elsewhere I'll attend if cited. Voca me *** benedictis.

Ashen-hearted, prone and prayerful, Oro supplex et acclinis,

When of death I see the air full, Cor contritum quasi cinis;

Lest I perish too be careful. Gere curam mei finis.

On that day of lamentation, Lacrymosa dies illa

When, to enjoy the conflagration, Qua resurget et favilla,

Men come forth, O be not cruel: Judicandus **** reus,

Spare me, Lord--make them thy fuel. Huic ergo parce, Deus!

YES, DELIA loves! My fondest vows are blest ;
Farewel the memory of her past disdain ;
One kind relenting glance has heal'd my breast,
And balanc'd in a moment years of pain.

O'er her soft cheek consenting blushes move,
And with kind stealth her secret soul betray ;

Blushes, which usher in the morn of love,
Sure as the red'ning east foretells the day.

Her tender smiles shall pay me with delight
For many a bitter pang of jealous fear ;
For many an anxious day, and sleepless night,
For many a stifled sigh, and silent tear.

DELIA shall come, and bless my lone retreat ;
She does not scorn the shepherd's lowly life ;
She will not blush to leave the splendid seat,
And own the title of a poor man's wife.

The simple knot shall bind her gather'd hair,
The russet garment clasp her lovely breast :
DELIA shall mix amongst the rural fair,
By charms alone distinguish'd from the rest.

And meek Simplicity, neglected maid,
Shall bid my fair in native graces shine :
She, only she, shall lend her modest aid,
Chaste, sober priestess, at sweet beauty's shrine !

How sweet to muse by murmuring springs reclin'd ;
Or loitering careless in the shady grove,
Indulge the gentlest feelings of the mind,
And pity those who live to aught but love !

When DELIA's hand unlocks her shining hair,
And o'er her shoulder spreads the flowing gold,
Base were the man who one bright tress would spare
For all the ore of India's coarser mold.

By her dear side with what content I'd toil,
Patient of any labour in her sight ;
Guide the slow plough, or turn the stubborn soil,
Till the last, ling'ring beam of doubtful light.

But softer tasks divide my DELIA's hours ;
To watch the firstlings at their harmless play ;
With welcome shade to screen the languid flowers,
That sicken in the summer's parching ray.

Oft will she stoop amidst her evening walk,
With tender hand each bruised plant to rear ;
To bind the drooping lily's broken stalk,
And nurse the blossoms of the infant year.

When beating rains forbid our feet to roam,
We'll shelter'd sit, and turn the storied page ;
There see what passions shake the lofty dome
With mad ambition or ungovern'd rage :

What headlong ruin oft involves the great ;
What conscious terrors guilty bosoms prove ;
What strange and sudden turns of adverse fate
Tear the sad ****** from her plighted love.

DELIA shall read, and drop a gentle tear ;
Then cast her eyes around the low-roof'd cot,
And own the fates have dealt more kindly here,
That blest with only love our little lot.

For love has sworn (I heard the awful vow)
The wav'ring heart shall never be his care,
That stoops at any baser shrine to bow :
And what he cannot rule, he scorns to share.

My heart in DELIA is so fully blest,
It has not room to lodge another joy ;
My peace all leans upon that gentle breast,
And only there misfortune can annoy.

Our silent hours shall steal unmark'd away
In one long tender calm of rural peace ;
And measure many a fair unblemish'd day
Of chearful leisure and poetic ease.

The proud unfeeling world their lot shall scorn
Who 'midst inglorious shades can poorly dwell :
Yet if some youth, for gentler passions born,
Shall chance to wander near our lowly cell,

His feeling breast with purer flames shall glow ;
And leaving pomp, and state, and cares behind,
Shall own the world has little to bestow
Where two fond hearts in equal love are join'd.

Oh, this is why I hate love!
How I used to moon over it;
shape it and craft it and run after it
in my brambles,
how I used to indulge it in my *****
protect it from any uncivil desecration
cherish it for its wilfulness
relish it for its greed;
how I tainted my heart with its fake scent!
It just dawneth on me!
Oh how I fervently remembereth the scene; the very afternoon scene, before me:
I was heaving my dull steps against the sheepish grounds;
so peaceful in their breezy slumbers;
unlike the busy grass afield!
their dainty colours blackened by the whirring clouds from afar.
Hung cozily amongst the sky, whose childishness wasth adjourned by
the sleeping rain!
Oh but it was none yet coldeth but temperate;
when his moorish figure, blent into the naturalness of the afternoonth;
retreated into the lingering scene,
swiftly and lightly as the chirruping birdth aloft,
as if no anguish was within reach,
as wildly glistening as the mirth of the old den!
How my soul warmed towards the sight of him,
and on he went to relate his selfish story.
How I celebrated it - its giddy, gullible outset!
How I endorse its unknowing innocence!
How I adorned it with my passion!
His reclamation proceeded,
I was but astounded to hark to the rest;
into it he amorously poured the account of a bizarre creature;
namely a stranger;
invariably a woman!
How insolent!
He named her his love;
he waveth his moronic praise at hers;
at her charm, andth not mineth!
I was spurned, my heart was churned;
despite my stranded efforts to keep my pair of
relenting eyes
unblinking;
I steadied my legs, I was more than ready to
bounce and go
sway myself away from this gloomy tragedy
as before me the story undesired unfolded:
my love was repressed, my heart was
bludgeoned, heartily bludgeoned,
and I was silenced; could no longer feelth the tinges of blood
in my latent veins.
He hath slaughtered my peace!
My inner visions, hopes, and dreams!
I hath lost all of which!
I hath lost my shrieks; I could not voice my despair;
yet I could not utter my grief!
I was cursed and condemned;
my soul was appallingly dishonored;
my entirety is for lifelong anger,
desolation, ignominy and utmost desperation!
My crossness against the Creator arose,
like a wave of torment,
a surge of unbecomingth animosity,
as to no matter how I suppressed it unthinkingly,
all ended in vain:
My stern heart shan't ever melt to love again.
Oh my love, my love,
my princeth, my deviousth prince,
the only one I was so ardently fond of
how could thou deepen my misery?
How could thou ****** my sweetest virginal affection
in the midst of my isolation?
Like the sultry willows
whose memories unshaken, unbitten in the most
melodious, but pallid from the heath
in this musty, salubrious air
my blooming flowers hath died
I am brokeneth, I am torn!
I am writhing in my vainness,
my foolish longing, unmissed and unsung by the dandy branches aboveth
Dancing in my own blueness, weariness that is both livid
and unforgiving
scared by the heartless world
in the course of this barren winter.
Winter with no whiteness;
winter unholy and fulleth of diminutive, evil suffrage.
How ungodly!
I am raked into pieces;
and this is what remains.
This is my misery; oh how I could not riseth above the misery itself!
This is my solemn admonition,
this is my fate!
I have no right to love,
to embrace and to be embraced,
and from this day on I wanth but to dismiss my love;
onto my heart was bestowed not serene affection but intelligence;
and intellect is far better regarded than love!
How sully, narrow, and vicious love is!
How unimportant it is in the eyes of glory,
and the sea of fictitious admiration.
I quit the monstrousness of yon outer devastation;
I take hold of my pen,
and swim deeper into my whining words, again.

there is something beautiful about you
when you cry.
i don't know if it's the sadness
that leaks from your skin
or how your brain pain is near tangible.
nor do i know
why that should be beautiful
but perhaps it is just the softness
the relenting,
the giving up,
the most ****** up form of peace.
and the repeat realization
of all the reasons
you should feel guilty.

it shows on your face.
as your cheeks redden and then drain slowly of color.
through your muscles
as they tense, almost relax, and then shake.
your eyes, they are red.
they are red and small and drooping.

you see yourself in the mirror
and you fight an urge to smash it again.
you're ashamed, but you see it too:
you are so ******* pretty when you cry.
that robe of misery suits you so well.
maybe you were born for pain.

GLUTTONY


Go ahead and gorge yourself upon gallons of gaudy garments,
Gaining more weight got by galling garish goods I guess won’t
Ground

Let loose to the luscious luxuries of lackluster lemon and
Lots of lulling bedtime letters that will surely let at bay the
Ladies

Unravel your unctuous mind and unwrap the unstoppable urge
That undeniably lives under unruly layers of
Unproductive

Together bring the talk of taking another tackle to your taciturn tally,
Taller the score and take down the tormenting tickling
Tack

Over and over in obscure ovals until objective becomes apparent
Only leaving orbs of former obliqueness’ obliging to
Object

Never again nourish the need to negate the null to nonsense,
Leave behind the knots of then and live the neat of
Now

Yesterday was yellow in yielding to yearning and
Today is your yet to the question of no or
Yes











GREED



Gradualy every great thing grounded in your gaudy life will grain,
Falling from grander to
Greed

Run away you realize will render you ridiculously reeled
Be the regal recall of natures
Ranting

Even then elude the everlasting elasticity of your sins
Only to elect your own faults and
edict

Evermore entrapped in the entity of your greed which eels
Its way through your
Etiquettes

****** to depths of hell’s dungeons you will go down
If you never fix your
Deeds.







WRATH



Wound so tightly your will won’t save you when the
Day weans of light to
Wear

Repent all you require if you really must, no reprise
Will be your
Reward

Again and again you’ve all but alleged all of your agitations
And now do you
Abject

Too many you take to the top and through to the terrible
Tale of
Tartaras

How do you have your hallowed hot-headed hate now
Had by all you
hocked







SLOTH



Silently slithering fangs strike and pierce into your supple skin
The serpent of Hades himself forcing you to succumb to
your sloth

Legs let leave your longing to linger standing
The lull of the luscious leisure of laziness
Calling you

Over and over you omit the need to oblige
Object the obscurities and overcompensate the
obligation

Though it takes away tell of your toes, stunning your talk
Teathering you to a tree and leaving you to the
terrors

However hollow the halo, the hearth of hasty hearts, may be,
you cannot halt it before is has you in its hold
sleep








LUST


Linger in line a little longer until your litenous lust
lessens to lethargic
larceny

Undone and unset you undermind your unity
and uncite all uncertainty, understand to this
ulcer

Slung across a slat singing sultry in your stipple,
you slew to sound off your
sanity

Taught thoughtless logic tenderly apply topical treatment
to tape together the tatters, tonight a temporary
Tylenol








ENVY



Eject and exact illusions of elected goals eluding your reason
So eject them for
Ever

Never return, never negate the negligence of this nuisance,
Need it
Not

Vanquish your venomous vicarious visions so vivid
I assure you not very
Vivid

Yearn no more and yearn by years how yellow
Can yell the
Yetti








PRIDE



Perniciously palpable pigs of pride that so prate way their progress,
Putting all but prosperity in their own
Propensity

Ridiculously cold rendering the most righteous of realist,
Even relenting to the racketeering of a
Rider

I too see an iota of insolence in intemperate impostors
Of what internal instances tell us is
Intimidating

Down the street dally a day and discover how detrimental
Such a disease dilutes the delineation of our past
Delegation

Even if one ever eludes the elasticizes of this eccentric extortionist
Eventually another will emit it upon to you again
entirely

listen to me
im screaming your name
yet you look through me..
im circling you with hate filled eyes.
yelling,scratching, fighting to be seen,
and yet im ignored.
now im begging, pleading on my knees
to be aknowledged
yet im shunned.
my tears fall in noiseless streaks
shattering like glass at your feet
and yet.. You walk right by me..
we dance this fiery tango day and night
neither relenting in his struggle.
u to ignore..
me to be noticed..
why is it so hard to look at me
when,without me, you do not exist?
you NEED me, so i stay.
yet you act like im not welcome.
stop.
look at me
at yourself
learn to love what you see
its time you realized who you are..
let me show you the truth
in your reflection.
.

What's this aching in my bones
this pounding in my brain
this voice whispering in my ear
this awful burden I bare with so much strain
What's this torture in my soul
this burning in my veins
this relenting loneliness and pain
this confusion in my head
What's this trembling in my body
this vulnerability on my lips
this desperation I can't come to grips
these shaking hands and weak *** knees
What's this feeling inside of me
this hole I can't fill
this darkness I cannot peel
my mind is racing and my heart is too
this feels like depression that I am slipping into
What's this bitterness I feel towards men
how do I overcome this deli-ma I am in
how do i open up  and let my feelings show
how am I suppose to love  again with this heart that is not whole
What's this anger dwelling deep in me
how do I rid myself of this disease
what will it take to put the past behind
what must I do to just let you go this time
What's this sinking feeling deep in my gut
this burning sensation like being freshly cut
why must I continually gasp to breathe  
because of this tsunami wave crashing down upon me?!

Copyright © 2013 by Ashley Rodden

through shattered glass a broken mind
in one lone voice terse and cleansed
speaks unspoken thoughts of rusty will

nestled in spirit's brawny grasp
winged notions lay in wait
on woodless edges of fate's forest
relenting for relent's sake

heart-shaped clouds bleed sorrowed sheets
blanketing a clown of shame
huddled atop nervy stilts
embedded in the muck of mourn

furious fields forge fires of rage
a sweltering stench stands tall
in lockstep a ghosts parade
foggy silhouettes stop and gaze
watching, waiting, wanting
to rob future's grave of treasures past

scratched and bruised and battered lands
tattered bands of dreamscape caravans
timeless sands, spineless hands, heartless clans
among these, fate is planned

a distant city stands to fall
infidels shall cringe and crawl
brotherhood of hate begun
redemption of man undone

It's another night alone in my bed.
Thoughts of you trapped in my head.
And despite knowing the truth, evident with blinding proof,
My pride won't let me not be the fool.

And I know that you're better off with another,
And I know my presence can hauntingly hover,
But this is all I know, as my act will surely show,
Just how I revel in the acting a fool.

If this is the role I'm cast to be,
I'll wear my crown with unbridled glee.
Never relenting, always presenting,
Playing your games like a fool.

Your name would echo in the hallway
My friends experts in the game you play.
But I refused to listen, as your smile would glisten,
A boy predestined to be the fool.

Fast forward the clock and look at us now,
Your rise to the top left them all asking how,
But here I remain, fighting for a level plain.
Permanently cast as your silly little fool.

And as we grow old and grey,
I'll finally have the proper words to say,
I'll tell you it all, my reckoning will call,
My dying breath as the fool.

I continue to hold to this slimmer of hope,
For it's the only way that I can truly cope,
With how you really don't care, a hollow heart with pretty hair.
But in the end I'm always the fool.

It takes strength to walk away from a toxic relationship, weakness to stay.

Wishful thinking will have you believing old problems or tyrant personalities have or will dissipate.

By constantly relenting, nothing will change.

Having said that, there is still time for you to gather your strength.

Take a stand, don’t stay victim to someone unworthy of your love.

Instead just walk away.

I was going to leave today but Love came
and lightly tapped my door.
As soon as I opened, oblivious to its intent,
it poured and whisked your name in to my place.
It sat contented at the end of my sofa while
I tried to reason with my hot cocoa tightly
clenched within my hands.
It asked for some and I gave my cup away
relenting to the oncoming shadow of the ending
of this day.

I was going to leave today and tightly shut the door
but,
what's the worst that could happen? Pondered Love.
Nothing to lose and nothing to fear-
Hoping for a yes with the possibility of getting “No.”
Live out in regret or knowing crystal clear.

Being wrapped in blankets is a seemingly wonderful thing. You get all wrapped up, things are feeling grand, but one wrong movement and BAM: a swab of fabric unexpectedly covers your face. You squirm and try anything to get it off; to unwrap yourself, but, alas, you cannot--you're stuck.
Breathing becomes more and more difficult until you are completely suffocating. Suddenly, everyone walks away, aloof to what is happening; but wait--here's the catch: there are no blankets and there are people all around.

"What's wrong with you?" They ask.

They wonder why doing anything is so hard; why nothing is enjoyable--why you may be numb to everything. They can't see the blankets, or that the struggle to escape overpowers all joy; that it may be so tight that you've become numb.

They don't understand why you want to give up.

"Get over it." They say, as they walk around, free as a bird, no blankets to hold them down.

You want to take their advice; to set yourself free. You begin to slash at the blankets, only to realize you're only slashing at yourself--but it helps for a bit. Maybe you feel less pain; maybe you finally feel something. For a few moments, you can breathe and put on pretend wings.
Fake wings don't last forever, though. Soon they fall, are stolen, break, get lost--whatever it may be--and they're gone.

You slip back into the blankets.

The birds with real wings start to notice; they want to know why you're doing this to them again.
"You were doing so well!" They insist.

You do what you know, and your scars become too numerous to count.
Again and again you escape and find  a pair of wings, but it never seems to be enough.

You are never enough.

Suddenly, you've got it. If you're small enough--strong enough--the blankets can't contain you.
So food becomes your enemy.
Soon enough, your blanket becomes as empty as you are. You think you are strong as you easily slide out, finding refuge in a pair of beautiful wings.
The birds all stare.

"How thin she's gotten," they comment.
Some are concerned, others jealous.
"She's not healthy," they say.
They take your wings away, insisting you need help.

The blankets are always there, waiting. This time, they've gotten smaller and they swallow you up. As you begin to be forced to swallow as well, the blankets refuse to grow with you.
Breathing is harder than ever.

You realize there's no way to stop this cycle. The blankets will always be waiting, never relenting. The birds will never understand, always blind to the fabric encompassing your face.

There is only one way out that will last forever, never a blanket in sight.
Slash deep enough and the blankets will disappear--and so will the birds.
"I can be free," you think.

Freedom at last.

I walk through the jungle dense
with majestic trees forming a tattered roof over my head
Misty sunshine peeping through
filling the air with an aroma of fresh greenness
My thoughts are focused on following the path
laid by those who've travelled this way before
I can hear distant sounds of chattering birds
I know I won't go hungry
I carry on, determination marking each step,
I must find what I had lost
The momentum pushes me forward and farther and deeper
I can hear the sound
I track closer and closer
It's going uphill, it's a struggle
It's near, I’m reaching
The path opens up to a clearing
There, in front of me, is the river
Flowing east
I reach the bank and there I see
A rainbow hovering over the waterfalls,
Welcoming me as with tears of a long lost friend
I stand there for a moment to take it all in
I remove my heavy clothing and slide in
It's cool and shocking at first
Then I submerge and ball up and just float in the river
It sounds like a choir of trees, water and music
I hear music
I lift my head out to breathe
The sky is blue with clouds floating by
The sunshine blankets me from above and
The cold river cushions under
Relenting, I smile
Realizing I've found heaven
Mesmerized....

These Circles, that they be Linked or Exchanged
Harness the Janitor in me maintain
Though Depressed be my Blinding Mind deranged
Help to Embalm this Un-Relenting Pain
These Sages through Time by their Words endow
And cause Wisdom one's Joy through Skin avoid
To force my Soul its Inborn Blessings enrouse -
Shake your Sugars from this fail-tripped Colloid
That's Milk to you. If your Matters be Sweet
Then carry your Mornings free from my Sense
As such would I, rake the Roots off your feet
And pledge my Sharp Evenings to recompense.
Funny how Loss, its Cross mint Cool Relief
Upon the Monk's Throne absolved your Belief.

‬

Color rides the universe-
The final present in a hole should fade-
Stories of fresh love-
Words of wisdom kings to be made-
Fresh shame haunts-so-slow those devils inside-
Relenting exhaustion-putting all hurt-aside-
Relinquishing in love-
Passion drive drugs-
Hugs are forgotten-but not these cold shrugs-
Pride to the wilderness-Standing at St. Peters gate-
Amongst the villains to be judged-
Grandeur-we wait-
He stands before his maker-
Dancing clouds in the sky-
Love making love to you-
Is the dream of goodnight-

Excuse my drifting-
I didn't mean to kiss you like that,
I was just trying to swallow the space between us somehow
because I think tonight the moon was stillborn.
All the tides seem broken.

The space is dragging with plaintive collectibles=
complacency in yellow-teeth cliffsides, and all the empty shells
in which we'd listened for the corners of our ocean
and heard it ebbing, relenting, reaching.
It rippled on our skins and made us twinkle then.

Now I'm missing you, the grating bottle-glass shards
are what my headaches are made of
and are what fill up my shoes.

When our spines unravelled, I heard rain-
letter-writing weather, bathtub weather,
knitwear-perhaps-on-the-beach weather-
but the puddles were coming from the sun.
I don't know quite when summer blew in.

We would have found canvas chairs in the park.
You would be taking pictures of yellow daffodils
in black and white with your big heavy camera,
and laughing at each sneeze because I'm allergic.

There's really no need now to listen in shells
for the clutter leftover in elegy-
platitudinous phrases, photographs, plenty more fish in the sea.
Words couldn't ever weigh the depths of it.
Only abrade and erode it.

Yours is a world that, for immeasurable gaps
and for whirlpools and whale sounds,
I am not a part of anymore.
But please excuse my drifting.
I will always love the echoes
and walk along the beach in search of shells.

Contemplating
Heart beat racing
I pace to and fro

My blood boiling
Fingers coiling
Time I have to go

Nostrils flaring
Eyeballs glaring
Seeing your demise

Temper rising
No compromising
You will have to die

bloodshot eyes
From the lies
You expressed to me

bulging veins
black tear stains
Soon I'll set you free

Hell accepting
Soul collecting
Yours paid in advance

No repenting
So relenting
With the Devil dance

petulant little face
squeaks its dissatisfaction with the way
bitterness has dissembled its state of mind
its hunched scrawny little body slinks in through the shadows
thing thing
this ***** little thing

stop it you f&%kin *******
your driving me insane
tapping tapping at the door

i own the control over nothing but me
but this thing keeps softly invading me
this missing thing
this absence
when nothing is required to keep moving
when there is no distraction
thing small thing crawls in
this depraved little monster with its sharp claws
this f%&ki;; little thing
beating at the door for hours
softly pounding at the gate
for days
for years
'your alone and your going to stay that way'
alone alone alone
makes my world barren
makes my heart a hurting thing
this thing will not leave me be
i wrap my fingers around its ugly neck
and throttle the life from it
but moments later
there it is tapping at the door
your alone
your alone
alone alone alone
tapping alone alone
like my witless heart it keeps beating
slowly at the door demanding
without relenting
that something is absent
something is missing
fill me fill me
tapping at the door
let me out