andave's place

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
3/14/09

A nondescript little woman
Waiting patiently for the Ancient Mariner
To relate his eerie tale as a
Familiar albatross wheeled aloft.

“The long-rolling,
Steady-pouring,
Deep-trenched
Green billow…” (1)

An old man
Nodding gently at Holmes
As the Detective elucidates his method,
Watson taking notes.

“Call – call – and bruise the air:
Shatter dumb space!
Yea! We will fling this passion everywhere.” (2)

A dusty scholar,
Weeping with Andromache as
She washes Hector’s body,
Astyanax on her back.

“Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”(3)

A wheel-chaired woman
Solemnly gives Don Quixote directions
To the nearest castle for food, wine,
And lodging for him and his faithful squire.

“They rush in read and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in score;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hills of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be.”(4)

A wild-eyed man
Clenching his fists as he rides with Carton,
Who gives nobly a life with no hope of love
For a happy life lived vicariously.

“Grey looks the ward with November’s overcasting
But his large eyes seem to see beyond the day;
Speech becomes sacred near silence everlasting;
Oh if I must speak, have I words to say?” (5)

An eye-glassed student,
Shaking with revulsion as Macbeth
Looks despairingly at the blood engrained in his palms,
Wishing greed had never conspired against the king!

“Mere Anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”(6)

And should we find the key to
Unlock these fragile ghosts from musty tomes
The worlds would rise
And life would invert – revert – subvert –
From what it is to what it should be.

The lock is in the library.

“Here is the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.”(7)


1: James Stephens
2: Isaac Rosenberg
3: Dylan Thomas
4: G.K. Chesterton
5: John Betjeman
6: W.B. Yeats
7: Thomas Hardy