Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Today's Poetry Corner....






From, "The Journal of Albion Moonlight"

1940

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
All the spirits that stand
By the naked man
In the book of moons. defend ye,

That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from
Yourselves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.

With a thought I took from Maudlin,
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall,
Sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never waked,
Till the roguish boy
Of love where I lay
Me found and stript me naked.

The moon’s my constant mistress,
And the lonely owl my marrow;
The flaming drake
And the night-crow make
Me music to my sorrow.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft, when he lies sleeping,
I see the stars
At mortal wars
In the wounded welkin weeping,

The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the queen of love her warrior,
While the first doth horn
The star of morn,
And the next the heavenly farrier.

With an host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear
And a horse of air 
To the wilderness I wander;  

By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond
The wide world's end --
Methinks it is no journey.