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Distraction

To take my mind off my current dilemma, here's a poem that I'm particularly proud of:

Invocation of The Muse

From whence doth thy rage spring, sweet Euterpe?
Where once thy whispers lilted honeyed on
The tongues of many who sung thy tribute,
And flutter’d softer than the night moth’s wing,
Now thy harmonious tunes discordant
Fall to the mists below thy secret home.

Hath unforgiving Jove fetter’d thee there,
As Prometheus too was constricted
Unjust for his love of humanity?
Say not that thy delicate hands hath been
Forever remov’d from the golden lyre
That once hath rous’d men to sing thy worship;
Or even that thine own song hath thus soon
Been silenced, thy lips muzzled by his hand
In his jealousies of thy affection!
Speak but once if this be true, and I would
Risk Jove’s ire to shake the heavens and thus
Awake thy kin, revealing that dark plot;
Or might I smite that hand and remove thy
Distressing encumbrance, thus freeing thee
To sing again and bring light to our hearts.
Nay, over much dost thy father love thy
Soft refrains, thy sweet melodies, and would
Yield that lot in keeping thy song silent.

Or, gentle Muse, hath thy voice grown harsh and
Thus nigh reticent through long years still mourn’d?
Dost thou weep again the loses of thy
Most favoured children, fallen too soon?
Rise, dear one, and thus silence thy anguished
Cries; let thy songs be heard again in this
E’er darkly age. O light thy bower’s eaves,
And bring hence thy lyre, and sing thy greatest
Of strains; let thy favour’d yet have new voice
That we here might know thy beauteous form,
And to thine honour mend thy shatter’d heart.
O! Cast off thy ebon robes, shed away
Thy mourning garb and command thy ladies
Bring forth the brightest of gowns, that might still
Outshine the winged chariot of thy
Fair brother, Apollo, and deign him sing!

Come thou hence from that lonely hall and walk
Again the brooks and fields, the woods and haunts,
O! Take to wing those skies and wave from man’s mind
The somber veil that thy hush hath assumed.
Yea, that most somber veil that hath fallen
At thy absence and, like the toad by night,
Made thy children’s songs cease to thence be sweet,
So seemingly bereft of thy music.
Sing that thy symphonies will be heard here
And echoed by the hearts and minds of man;
Reunite the soul and sense, so by that
Ancient craft, this sprite might uplifted be
And share in joys lost to these darken’d years;
Sing that thy voice might sound within the ears
Of those lost bards and waken them from that
Long slumber by the banks of river Styx,
(Whose waters more than seven times hath passed)
And bid them thence to remember thy tunes,
And join thee in thy most melodious
Of hymns; O! Rouse thy issue most favoured!

Send me the sparks that light the universe!
Those unknown spheres that unfold to mine eyes,
The countless worlds unseen, unheard, unfelt
By many mortal unapprehending mind;
By those fires, let me glimpse what thou hast know
Of what was and may become of this plane
And those misted by the unbelieving,
Imagineless souls that haunt those listless
Hours forsook by stars and the chastest moon;
No longer veil the tales within the great
Hunter hid, nor bear, nor any within
Thy lighted realms. Unfold thy starry hand
And hold bare the accounts that thou didst share
To the ears of those still unnumbered.

Have I not ears that thou might’st whisper to,
Nor tongue that might yet sweetly sing thy songs?
Have I not hand and pen with which I might
Script the ages thou couldst tell of? O! Hear
My plaintive hymn, for time presses short my
Years, and still I have much to work. Leave not
My stone to read “This and the dust beneath
Are still his greatest offer unto man.”
Rather let them say, “His lyrics brighten’d
Our darkest day, and reacquainted our
Souls' sweet music with the void there afore.”

Thus, O gentlest Muse, my humble gift
Unto thee is mine ear, my tongue, my hand,
All else thou might’st need to walk again
The lowly realms of man; stray soft Ida’s
Lofty halls and mantle thy tender strains
Upon the streams and trees and hill and mount,
And rest not lest Nature’s entirety
Revels at thy coming form, and bows low
Unheeded for weakness at thy beauty.

posted by September @ 12:15 PM