a fine portrait of the late great genius poet John Keats.

TO A WOMAN (an old-fashioned poem)
(after Bernie Taupin)

as sure as faithful clocks count sentient seconds,
and morphean mortals drink
from secret wells of truth,
I have fostered niobe's eyes, and miss you daily.
You, sweet love, in babylonian fields, refreshing
nature's sleeping firmament,
living like motherwort amidst the damask flowers,
anoting shores with oceanic splendour.
As every dead hour of sleep swathes sightless eyes,
in rarest eiderdown, my love,
you slumber: so far from home you choose to tread,
and send'st dreams of crystal streams,
of days deceased, when we would lean,
laughing, fit to cry upon each other.
O, sweet love, I see you tasting fruits of the citrus shrub;
the asphodelian fruit, entwined
with myrtle's sentient bine,
kissed by the visage of heaven's golden patriarch.
You, sweet love, in babylonian fields,
refreshing nature's sleeping firmament,
living like motherwort midst the damask flowers,
anointing shores in oceanic splendour.
As every dead wish of living sleep swathes sightless eyes,
in rarest eiderdown, my love, you slumber:
so far from home you choose to tread,
and send'st dreams of crystal streams,
of days long deceased,
when we would lean, laughing,
fit to cry upon each other.
Ah, if I could nestle in the haven of your heart,
my arms around your shoulders,
the shadows hesperion,
whilst the swallow weds the sycamore
in yonder lucretian valley...
I miss you, sweet jazzmin,
like a queen bee misses money.

*
copyright JIM BELLAMY, 1989

*

...

THE EYE OF BIRTH (an unreachable semblance) 

Well, in the West,
Where the spangly pleats of Night entwine
With the frowning Horizon's wayward eye,
The carpentry of Dian's sabled stamp
Breaks the sides of the Heavens:
Engulfing mortal trips and traps
In constant shapes of Ceres hue,
Thus drawing all from finite moulds
Towards the edge of pageless creation
Here motions, empty of age, collide with infant resource
Leaping to catch the pulsing breast
Of waves that measure the shores of birth
And murmur patent sanctuary
To all the earth may yearly receive
And endear so dearly to diurnal parts!

How strange to think that we
Are subject to this game of hours;
The runes of our accounts are cast
By flailing tongues of cocks and owls;
And ev'ry thrust of our hearts may weave;
(By sight of Orb and Atlas) is
A bride of tangled vacancies,
Clasped in the deeds of sadness-

And even 'mid the stride of swarthy reason,
Whence breaths and paramours deem to dance,
We are but figures of careless meanings
Whose shades of being are gladly hung
On hooks and blinds of reckless fortunes
And things beyond the natal mask.-

But, lo!, there is a sweetness in the mind
That binds and deifies the shriek of blood,
And weds the cloudy felonies of lungs
To naked knaves of Innocence:-
A feminine sweetness such
As. when bought to serve the pen's occasion,
Defies all lengths of placement,
And gives to lustive titles
A reverie of both hanker and disdain;
Awak'ning sov'reign veins to verbs of honey;
Those verbs that prance upon the spheres
And glide between the coiling moans
That couple the clocks of bed and bier,
And spin the womb of the Universe.

O, dearest Tamzin! Yes,
I speak of Joy: Holy times:-
The breathing fruit of the soul;
Fruit that crowns the quick'ning breeze
Of past and vanished Ages,
Where documents of Love
  Are sanctified and serenaded
By trembling flutes and twiring sins 
Struck from the beating stars.

Aye! Happy, Happy times,
Sensed in Life's meandering stems;
Issuing forth th' silv'ry threads
Of bright and minstrel diadems:-

Prates of slumb'ring tenderness, that never
Leave the swooping toll of trusted veins.
Dates, sweet Love, that have gather'd ever
From the boiling mountains and the skeins
That feed upon the music of your heart.

Oft in my Days of Tears do I
Relive and bless the laughing hour
When, thro' the veils of Living Sleep,
I wandered 'thwart th' dreamy bowers
Of thine Sirian eyes.

Amid all things mine heart didst lie,
Wi' solitude's fears, athwart rank weeds,
That grow betwixt Life's formless Stave,
And far Adrastea's coil-kissed Map!
Here, storms rose from careless wounds
Wedded by twines of Heavenly tongues;
Wherein there leapt a boundless sea
That coursed beneath a robeless sun:
Caressing hands of frenzied leaves,
And cursing Death's e'er sleeping curve
Of misty moulds and bloody wave,
That men forfend, wi' lusty might,
When hands becalm th' rapine streams,
Yet, wi' foam-wrapped passion, greet,
When Ares swathes th' Night in ash.

'Twas th' Noble Eye of Birth I saw;
A beauteous pool of soft'ning charm,
That seemed to lead th' breath of me
Into a pit of fiery heights;
Where Don, th' Judge of Final Christ,
Sat upon her throne of Joy
And, wi' voice of Purest Rain,
Brushed th' Air with Song,
O, ne'er could I delete the sights
That flew wi' ev'ry stirring bar,
Effusiing plinths of Wizardry
And choking thirsts with greatest sprites
Wi' twists of cordial winds.
On heath, shrub, and rock, mine eyes aligned
And drank th' dews of Heaven's comment,
Conceived 'mid cherub-blade of Light,
That none could meet in earthly folds!
Here, th' raging fruits of Dreams,
E'er blushing wi' Treasures sweet and scarce,
Fell to turfs and flattered me
Wi' fields of fever'd plenty;
Refreshing Cupid's meady crown,
And bearing decline
To Man's filth-sucked device.

Thus failless Love stood Royally there,
As time's timeless Soul, and loud Solicitor;
And Senna's Army-, bad earth's swoons, -
Beheld no sentient Protector.

Ay me ! Sweet Love,
Thy heart is living key
To bounteous Truths of spectres manifold;
Th' golden Throne of Poesy's Sanctuary,
That this thine Hymn doth Serenade-
The plashy thread of Deity,
And all th' sentiments of Being
Are moulded with the constant beat
Of thy vermeil Beauty.
Into thy flowering dream I fell,
As one who'd never felt before
Th' rage of Night and Day entwined
Along the lap of ceaseless sleep:
And mine eye beheld a Face:
An eminence of Feverish Joy
That seemed to feed on Nature's Lymph,
And, Oh, did lift the Soul of Love
Unto a pounding ridge of raptured Song.-
Lo, from hills of Celtic realms, dear Heart, you came
Wi' Don's resounding cataract
Of murm'ring Glow, amid thy fragrant form,
And thine ambrosial bosom rose,
From stealthy lakes and air-tinged Heaths
That Cynthia kissed wi' scented care;
Here, th' dappled face of patient force
Shall twire athwart the staves of May,
And bewitch th' heart wi' sapful tears
Which arose twixt child's red-laden lips-
From tranquil death of velvet dawn
Nur'tring damask'd breaths amid
Th' rose-drawn Diadem of Love.
Here th' Eye of Birth may enfold
A thousand days in momentary gasp,
And swoon forever in Eternity's fixing gaze
Wherein the Mortal Bid is woven whole.
...
jdb 1990.

....