CAMELOT FANTASIES

One of my favourites:-
Among the Sandhills by Laurence Hope

Lie still, Beloved, I also see the day
Shoot his white arrows through the trembling sky,
But what is dawn to us, who cast away
All sense of time that mars our ecstasy?

The scented orange bushes check the breeze
Granting in tribute many waxen stars,
And aromatic Eucalyptus trees
Defy the sun with grey-green scimitars.

Since fate has given us this garden love,
And Time and Space, for once, have acquiesced,
Ah, take no heed of paling skies above,
Let us deem night is with us yet, and rest.

Let us lie still and drift away in dreams,
Back to the jewelled kingdom of the night,
Whose golden stars with dimly radiant gleams
Lit up your loveliness for my delight.

Once we are risen all the cares of day
Will seize and bind us to their wanton will.
Why should we own that night has passed away?
Oh, as you value love, lie still, lie still!

The Privileged Lovers-Rumi

The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,

This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.

They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.

They have left behind
the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion.

wow. awesome.


Rumi might be America's most read poet.



we should start a thread for Rumi.



thank you for sharing.

I just found this one. it looks like a classic:





Valentine



by Elinor Wylie



Too high, too high to pluck
 My heart shall swing.
 A fruit no bee shall suck,
 No wasp shall sting.
 
 If on some night of cold
 It falls to ground
 In apple-leaves of gold
 I’ll wrap it round.
 
 And I shall seal it up
 With spice and salt,
 In a carven silver cup,
 In a deep vault.

 Before my eyes are blind
 And my lips mute,
 I must eat core and rind
 Of that same fruit.

 Before my heart is dust
 At the end of all,
 Eat it I must, I must
 Were it bitter gall.
 
 But I shall keep it sweet
 By some strange art;
 Wild honey I shall eat
 When I eat my heart.

 O honey cool and chaste
 As clover’s breath!
 Sweet Heaven I shall taste
 Before my death.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She was openly bisexual and had affairs with other women and married men. When she finally married, hers was an open marriage. Her 1920 poetry collection A Few Figs From Thistles drew controversy for its novel exploration of female sexuality. She was one of the earliest and strongest voices for what became known as feminism. One of the recurring themes of her poetry was that men might use her body, but not possess her or have any claim over her. (And perhaps that their desire for her body gave her the upper hand in relationships.)






 
I, Being Born a Woman, and Distressed




by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 I, being born a woman, and distressed
 By all the needs and notions of my kind,
 Am urged by your propinquity to find
 Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
 To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
 So subtly is the fume of life designed,
 To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
 And leave me once again undone, possessed.
 Think not for this, however, this poor treason
 Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
 I shall remember you with love, or season
 My scorn with pity — let me make it plain:
 I find this frenzy insufficient reason
 For conversation when we meet again.

—  Sweet Rose of Virtue


 by William Dunbar
 loose translation by Michael R. Burch



 Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
 delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
 richest in bounty and in beauty clear
 and in every virtue that is held most dear―
except only that you are merciless.

 Into your garden, today, I followed you;
 there I saw flowers of freshest hue,
 both white and red, delightful to see,
 and wholesome herbs, waving resplendently―
yet everywhere, no odor but bitter rue.

 I fear that March with his last arctic blast
 has slain my fair rose of pallid and gentle cast,
 whose piteous death does my heart such pain
 that, if I could, I would compose her roots again―
so comforting her bowering leaves have been.

One of my favourites:-
Among the Sandhills by Laurence Hope

Lie still, Beloved, I also see the day
Shoot his white arrows through the trembling sky,
But what is dawn to us, who cast away
All sense of time that mars our ecstasy?

The scented orange bushes check the breeze
Granting in tribute many waxen stars,
And aromatic Eucalyptus trees
Defy the sun with grey-green scimitars.

Since fate has given us this garden love,
And Time and Space, for once, have acquiesced,
Ah, take no heed of paling skies above,
Let us deem night is with us yet, and rest.

Let us lie still and drift away in dreams,
Back to the jewelled kingdom of the night,
Whose golden stars with dimly radiant gleams
Lit up your loveliness for my delight.

Once we are risen all the cares of day
Will seize and bind us to their wanton will.
Why should we own that night has passed away?
Oh, as you value love, lie still, lie still!

just read it again.


it is beautiful.

 Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae


 by Ernest Dowson



"I am not as I was under the reign of the good Cynara"—Horace

 Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
 There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
 Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
 And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
 Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
 I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

 All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
 Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
 Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
 But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
 When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
 I have been faithful to you, Cynara! in my fashion.

 I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
 Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
 Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
 But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
 Yea, all the time, because the dance was long;
 I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

 I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
 But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
 Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
 And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
 Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
 I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

Cradle Song




by William Blake




 Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
 Dreaming in the joys of night;
 Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
 Little sorrows sit and weep.

 Sweet babe, in thy face
 Soft desires I can trace,
 Secret joys and secret smiles,
 Little pretty infant wiles.

 As thy softest limbs I feel
 Smiles as of the morning steal
 O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
 Where thy little heart doth rest.

 O the cunning wiles that creep
 In thy little heart asleep!
 When thy little heart doth wake,
 Then the dreadful night shall break.

 Auden's "Lullaby" was written from one adult to another. Blake's "Cradle Song" is a lullaby written by an adult to a sleeping baby. Blake was married but never had children, as far as we know, yet his love and compassion for the nameless sleeping baby are wonderfully evident in this very moving poem.