The Mystical Chain
An excerpt from the verse-novel, The Riddle and the Sphinx.)

You are like me,
forever aggrieved,
a refugee,
ill at ease
in a world we have not
ourselves conceived.”

“You allot your ennuis
to me.”

“No love is a vice.
The mystical chain
is all we retain
of Paradise.”

The Bay-Wreath Ballad

What though the sleek rams
Shiver in love’s heat?
There is sun on the green glen.
Bind me a bay-wreath.

What though the sea-breeze
Hurries the rain’s sheath
To darken the glad heath?
Bind me a bay-wreath.

What though the grey wolf
Gnashes his long teeth?
Take a song for your trouble.
Bind me a bay-wreath.

What though the love-knot
Break when the twain meet?
Mend it with soft words.
Bind me a bay-wreath.

The Land

I come from a place…
that breathes,
Its hills rolling like a lover’s breast,
And there some gentle god might lay his head.

I come from a place…
that runs,
Its streams ceaselessly tripping, needing no rest,
As if their naiads were never dispirited.

I come from a place…
that laughs,
Where dew teases the flowers to shake out their scent,
And amuses the grass till the meadows are carpeted.

I come from a place…
that sings,
The tree rustle with all the woodland’s assent
To the voices of birds, each finding a pleasant bed.

I come from a place…
that yields,
The fields pliable, sweet and hearty to smell,
As if the soil could make some goddess’s bread.

I come from a place…
that sleeps,
A peace seeping as under the small rain’s spell,
As if some god had said, “Now, Tranquility, spread.”