You, wild and unbridled maid
At whose gaze flames shall dance,
Burning, searing with primal fury and unearthly desire.
You who enrobe your voluptuous figure with the sighing shade of Night,
Tamed by your will, slave to your passions,
To cloak you in subservient awe
And scent your skin with leather and wild roses.
You whose solemn and supple voice shall enslave the mighty dragon
To bear you through tumultuous skies on swift wings;
You whose eyes bespeak whole lives at a moment's fleeting glance,
Passion and fury, glory and sorrow.
You who Death shall ne'er conquer,
You who Life shall ne'er grey.
You whose sighing whisper shall bid mountains tremble.
You whose wisdom has paled the proudest of sages,
And whose regal air of defiance and will
Has made the boldest of tyrants shiver beneath their iron crowns;
Summon forth your strength and wit,
And bestow upon your benighted prince,
The humblest gift of love.
Save your sceptres and jewels
For the fat gluttonous merchants
Who lick their meaty lips with unsavory tongue,
As they grasp with oily palms their earthy god,
Their gilden idol, wet with blood
Of those who have perished and those who suffer yet,
As the perfidious priests of Bacchanal desire,
Christen the damned with showers of silver,
And sell to serfdom the quiescent doe-eyed throng,
And the apish husks which fie and foe to the thud of the drum.
Save for me your sweeter charms,
To drink the milk of life from your tender breasts,
To ride through midnight skies on wings denied
To this mortal frame into which I was cast.
Speak to me of worlds unknown
And of the boundless sea of dreams and visions,
Of what is now and what shall be,
To leave behind what was and what must pass,
To dine at your table on the fruits of wisdom,
And sip at length the wine of pure divine love,
The delight of your word, your face, your figure,
The warmth of your gaze laid full upon my yearning eyes.
What sorrow would dare to chill your hearth with its presence
When your lips curl gently into a smile?
What foe would dare to violate our sweet reverie?
Yea, Death itself stands enthralled in reverence!
So from your Hell, be free at last,
You queen of celestial night.
And from my Hell, I bid thee bear me,
Into worlds as yet unseen,
Where we may build a finer palace
Over the bones and ashes of the past,
And hand-in-hand ascend from the
Broken and barren wasteland of the earth,
Into an eyrie of magnificence,
Where the stars themselves may witness our ceaseless rapture,
And where we may shine, each basking in the other's radiance,
A constellation of two born anew in a heavens filled
With dying stars and fading suns,
To shine, my love, to shine!
George Chadderdon © 1993