Eurydice

For life was given to love and hold
Yet cast we away it daily, freely
But now we see the words of old

Men’s actions given strangely, meanly
And woman’s vice’s in pretty faces
Doth wrap as chains, cast so keenly

That drag the lover to unseen places
Two tormentors in eternal struggle
Fighting, wounding, running races

For with daggers sharp we did juggle
Thought we not that wounds would follow
As words and actions became so muddled

Yet on that night, in that hollow
Where danced you did by Phoebe’s light
When cursed adder’s venom did swallow

And you fell into the darkest night
In that moment did all fall away
My soul now penitent with all its might

I found no joy in the breaking of day
Open no flowers, sing no birds
Let no man come to me and say

“Why speak you these lamentful words”
I shall not allow them, will not listen
The air is smoke, the water foul curds

No more let dew or stars ever glisten
Let my poems no more speak of joy
To stop the sun ere he had risen

I find no pleasure with the girls and boys
All my companions fair now forsaken
And words pitter like lost little toys

My breath from my lungs is now taken
The lyre will no longer answer my call
My heart left with flotsam and bracken

Yet who comes here to lift my soul
This dark lord and lady of sorrow
To whom all go both humble and tall

“Hail, Hades, and Persephone Bride-Horror
Take me to shadehood and there let me cry
For ever and ever and not see a morrow

My song and my sadness remain lest I die”
And so I depart for the land of the shade
Where eternally I may sing and sigh

I pluck my lyre as I walk on paths unmade
To the gates of Hades full ashen and dust
Entering darkness to where I am bade

But the shades who stare with eyes of crust
Touch me not, but weep at the song
And the ferryman, old skeleton of rust

Demands no payment for the crossing long
And at the other side I find this land
Where weeping faces of other who were wronged

All point the road with tear wet hands
A road of slick wet tears and stones
All trickling with time’s hardest of sands

When finally I reach the throne of bones
Where sit the lord and lady of the dead
I sing my song of now being alone

And they even shed a tear for what’s said
And Persephone pale and heart ever hard
Has pity upon this poor poet’s head

“Hear, ye all, the words of this bard
For they have moved even Hell’s frigid queen
Now, listen Orpheus, your song now unmared

I grant thee the life of thy dream
But first leave this land of the wasted
Till then fair Eurydice must remain unseen

Once of the sun’s light she has tasted
Then may you turn and behold her again
Have patience and in your way be not hasted”

And so we departed death’s grey den
And walked back through the land of tears
And waded unharmed through Acheron’s fen

My heart now gladdened without fears
But lo as we approached dawn’s gate
What call picks up my music ears

For by some twist of horrid fate
My father’s voice hailed from behind
And my soul and heart could not be sate

And so I could not calm my mind
The greatest error of my short life
For just ere the sun’s light had shined

I turned, beheld my one time wife
A rotting corpse turned to smoke
Sucked back to Hell and all its strife

And the horrid shade my sin provoked
Stood leering with his twisted form
To my shadow whence from invoked

And I alone now lost and forlorn
Lie here upon the stranger’s beach
For the gate is hidden, and I am torn

And no way left for me to breach
Even in death’s unending shade
Her soul dissolved cannot be reached

So what’s left for this poet be made?
To travel lands far and unknown
There die and from the world to fade?

Or reaching Phrygian Cybele’s throne
Enclosed in secret wooden grove
Take Attesian oaths and live alone?

Or now turn from Juno and her Jove
Instead to follow Bacchus’ ways
With Eros and Himeros’ love

For Crete is so beautiful in summer days
Perhaps there Venus can be rejected
And forgotten remain all her ways

Or perhaps no way can be detected
To remain from cruel love’s touch
Pure, unspotted, and uninfected

For life was given to love and hold
Yet cast we away it daily, freely
But now we see the words of old

Men’s actions given strangely, meanly
And woman’s ways in pretty faces
Doth wrap as chains, cast so keenly

That raise the lover to unseen places
Either way remains one act for Orphean me
To sing this song for my Eurydice