Free The Human World © Surazeus 2024 10 04 The old black-doored house in Londinium near the bridge that crosses the River Styx retains ghost of my father in its walls who calls me to the library upstairs where he recounts grand glory of our clan defending freedom of our Sceptered Isle. Lingering in garden of the star-eyed queen among pink Sceptered Isle roses of faith, I contemplate songs of ravens in oaks who sing of beauty in this little world, this precious gem set in the silver sea, that nourishes strange sadness of my heart. With big eyes silver as the storm-flashed sea and wavy hair red as the rising sun, the Fairy Queen who rules this Sceptered Isle commissions me to fulfill secret quest, so I ride White Horse pricking on the plain to translate riddles of refreshing rain. When the Black Dragon of Error and Hate lunges from Cave of Illusions with wrath, I wield Excalibur, forged by King Arthur from mithril meteor stone that fell to Earth, to battle evil of its tyranny and free the human world for Liberty. Waking from my daydream as noble hero, I declare myself Albertus de Vere, the Twenty-Fourth Earl of Oxford, then trudge down to muddy shore of the River Styx where I hum old Ballads of Robin Hood while fishing to roast Cetus for my supper. Lounging on flat-top pyramid of Ishtar within four-pillared temple that Ptah built to shelter refugees from river floods, I peer through crystal palantir of truth to observe nature of the universe composed of atoms swerving in the void. Languid as Saturnus on flowered shore, I hail the frail Sad Poet who arrives to record sweet song of the nightingale then weeps in melancholy revery while pondering lovers on the Grecian Urn filled with wine I bought from Bacchus last month. Before returning home to Avalon, I pause before statue of Oberon, whose playful laughter on midsummer night inspires my heart to love this crazy world, then we, my wise wife and I holding hands, through Eden take our solitary way.
Friday, October 4, 2024
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Orpheus joins Oberon to dance in Stonehenge on midsummer night before the Fairy Queen among pink Sceptered Isle roses.
ReplyDeleteA Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
ReplyDeleteY cladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
The cruell markes of many a bloudy fielde
The Faerie Queene: Book I, Canto I
Edmund Spenser
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45192/the-faerie-queene-book-i-canto-i
Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
ReplyDeleteFar sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud.
Hyperion
John Keats
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44473/hyperion
John of Gaunt
ReplyDeleteMethinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renownèd for their deeds as far from home
For Christian service and true chivalry
As is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out—I die pronouncing it—
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat’ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.
That England that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/richard-ii/read/2/1/
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
ReplyDeleteOf Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.
Paradise Lost Book XII
John Milton
https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/book_12/text.shtml
Oberon in The Midsummer Night's Eve was based on Albericus de Vere
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Vere_I