The Poet: Spectre More Accursed

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surrealpoetics
Junior Member

since 2008-01-13

Posts 13
Spokane, Washington

0 posted 2008-01-13 06:12 PM

"Wet with thine own best blood shall drip
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;
The go stalking to thy sullen grave,
Go! and with gouls and afrits rave;
Till these in horror shrink away
From spectre more accursed than they!"
~Byron

Dread love! Dread life and living's fate!
'T is such that fills one's soul to hate!
Hatred ~ far kinder than accepting this curse
Of living life, death-like, and much worse!
Is it love and fame giving the Poet a name?
Or the Poet's infamy so ill-stricken with blame?
He travels far lands in search of release ~
Is this the lie robbing the poet of peace?
Or is the lie merely a life of unwanting ~
Where the Poet ~ immortal being ~ is haunting?

Dread spectre, whose curse is his art ~
The curse of his being ~ his torturous heart!
His words like dark magic enchant the lost souls;
His words are poison berries within silver bowls
(So beautiful to ponder and sensuously cool),
But the sage who eats thereof becomes the fool.
For heartlessly taken with pains intermix'd,
The Poet's heart truly is darkness transfix'd.
For whom but the Poet can give voice to such pain ~
Whose heart is the chamber where darkness doth reign?

Should the Poet's soul submit to his despair
Of the cold world's lack of love and of care?
Should his heart be all the more inclined
To his fears than to his hopes once pined?
What power has love when love falls asleep?
Is there a glint of hope the heart must keep?
Such questions have I within my cold room ~
Desolate, bare ~ fill'd wholly with gloom.
May love, true love, awaken her eyes ~
From the midst of this despair awaken! Arise!

Shower'd sombre, the rays of love and of life
Fall heartlessly torn from such deathly strife.
Now fame, the Poet's chain, is sadly wound
By infamy in which the Poet is bound.
The Poet has no freedom of sound humanity,
But lives in the bondage of doleful insanity.
In beholding love's death as his fair Juliet,
The Poet takes to hand his fate now beset:
He kisses the lips of his ill-fated poesy ~
Drifting in a dream's path, narrow and rosy.

January 22, 1997
(Birthday of George Gordon, Lord Byron)

Je suis de mon coeur le vampire,
— Un de ces grands abandonnés
Au rire éternel condamnés
Et qui ne peuvent plus sourire!
— Charles Baudelaire

Allogenes
Junior Member

since 2008-01-16

Posts 35

1 posted 2008-01-16 02:07 AM

It is truly refreshing to see a fellow- classicist who doesn't shy away from using tricky words like 'thou' and 'doth' in a poem now-a-days; there is a grandeur in the Olde English style that rings with artistic power. Such a pity it has fallen into general disuse.

surrealpoetics
Junior Member

since 2008-01-13

Posts 13
Spokane, Washington

2 posted 2008-03-21 08:28 AM

i completely agree

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

3 posted 2008-03-21 08:15 PM

Welcome to Passions, Surreal. I enjoyed the reading of this poem, but will not leave a critique at this time.

Please! Check your email for a Very Special Greeting!

" It matters not this distance now " Excerpt, Yesterday's Love
~*~
KRJ

eternally_singing
Member

since 2007-12-18

Posts 123
PA, United States

4 posted 2008-03-23 11:20 PM

A truly spectacular poem!

At night a candle's brighter than the sun

ayearofdust
Junior Member

since 2008-03-31

Posts 11

5 posted 2008-03-31 08:27 PM

Wonderful to read such a classic feeling poem. Something that seems to be disappearing.

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