Bigtitsbitch1000x
Virgin
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2024
- Posts
- 2,746
Your book came to me, my friend, from the other world--
A copy owned by my father’s friend, Weldon Kees,
Another poet, an early suicide;
I was a child of eight years when he died.
You, Thomas, brought Petrarch into English speech;
I too have known the pleasures of Romance tongues:
Scève, Nerval, and Breton, all French-born,
Vergil, and the Catalans March and Foix.
I too have walked the soil of Iberia,
Have served my country, as I best knew how.
I come to you now for aid, my poet-brothers,
Asking mercy for my frightened prayers:
I too, Weldon, have pondered the misbirth
Of poets’ pain, in this, the golden World;
I ask you here, Thomas, to enlist me,
In the noble ranks of soldier-troubadours.
For above all, I have watched the burdened heart
Of my loved one turn against me, like a fire
That, first blown away from one’s path by the wind,
Is suddenly turned again by winds anew
And smothers him who falls before its heat.
I am the man who with you, Thomas, knows no fate
But the love of earthly angels, that by rule
Must be corrupt, and tarnish all they touch.
I too know the jealousies, the brawls,
The exile made by baited vanity.
Like you, Thomas, I face the simplest terrors:
That love will not be reciprocated,
That my love will be murdered by her heart,
I know too well her infidelities--
As you knew those of Anne Boleyn, your lover,
Who you watched beheaded.
And now, half a thousand years away
I tell my son Matthew, “you must love
The people you love, your country, and the world
In totality, sparing nothing, always forgiving.”
Still, there is a hurt that brings weightlessness,
A shock that makes one feel detached from earth;
Could pain, not glory, lift one to the heavens?
If this is law, and Christian, I will dispute it,
Ready though I am for wounds that fill us with light,
The light you knew and sang, Thomas, from your cell
As I have sung, within walls not of jails
But as a sailor, so like a prisoner,
Who finds the wakings are the hardest hours--
And so as a lover, once again alone:
For like a miraculous castle, that moves its place
A heart, however fought for, may elude all love.
I believe, and will believe, and will believe,
Always and everywhere, in Her Innocence
For to believe is to speak the world afresh,
To come into the second wakening
The sailor seeks, and the prisoner
Who shuts his eyes, in dread before the walls
That say his days, his penance, and his pride.
This is the battle, Thomas, I will join:
I will make war against my own despair,
I will take up the sword of love, and carry
The banner on which is written, This Will Be Mine.
I will not fail, Thomas, nor regret
The moments I have given to a lie
More beautiful than any truth could be.
I will love and be loved, however destined;
Free, with you, and sovereign in desire.
( O )( O )
A copy owned by my father’s friend, Weldon Kees,
Another poet, an early suicide;
I was a child of eight years when he died.
You, Thomas, brought Petrarch into English speech;
I too have known the pleasures of Romance tongues:
Scève, Nerval, and Breton, all French-born,
Vergil, and the Catalans March and Foix.
I too have walked the soil of Iberia,
Have served my country, as I best knew how.
I come to you now for aid, my poet-brothers,
Asking mercy for my frightened prayers:
I too, Weldon, have pondered the misbirth
Of poets’ pain, in this, the golden World;
I ask you here, Thomas, to enlist me,
In the noble ranks of soldier-troubadours.
For above all, I have watched the burdened heart
Of my loved one turn against me, like a fire
That, first blown away from one’s path by the wind,
Is suddenly turned again by winds anew
And smothers him who falls before its heat.
I am the man who with you, Thomas, knows no fate
But the love of earthly angels, that by rule
Must be corrupt, and tarnish all they touch.
I too know the jealousies, the brawls,
The exile made by baited vanity.
Like you, Thomas, I face the simplest terrors:
That love will not be reciprocated,
That my love will be murdered by her heart,
I know too well her infidelities--
As you knew those of Anne Boleyn, your lover,
Who you watched beheaded.
And now, half a thousand years away
I tell my son Matthew, “you must love
The people you love, your country, and the world
In totality, sparing nothing, always forgiving.”
Still, there is a hurt that brings weightlessness,
A shock that makes one feel detached from earth;
Could pain, not glory, lift one to the heavens?
If this is law, and Christian, I will dispute it,
Ready though I am for wounds that fill us with light,
The light you knew and sang, Thomas, from your cell
As I have sung, within walls not of jails
But as a sailor, so like a prisoner,
Who finds the wakings are the hardest hours--
And so as a lover, once again alone:
For like a miraculous castle, that moves its place
A heart, however fought for, may elude all love.
I believe, and will believe, and will believe,
Always and everywhere, in Her Innocence
For to believe is to speak the world afresh,
To come into the second wakening
The sailor seeks, and the prisoner
Who shuts his eyes, in dread before the walls
That say his days, his penance, and his pride.
This is the battle, Thomas, I will join:
I will make war against my own despair,
I will take up the sword of love, and carry
The banner on which is written, This Will Be Mine.
I will not fail, Thomas, nor regret
The moments I have given to a lie
More beautiful than any truth could be.
I will love and be loved, however destined;
Free, with you, and sovereign in desire.
( O )( O )
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