Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LOVELIGHT, by FRANK WILMOT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LOVELIGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Joy recollected in joy was upon me again
Last Line: Blushing maid!
Alternate Author Name(s): Maurice, Furnley
Subject(s): Happiness; Joy; Delight


JOY recollected in joy was upon me again:
Supremely contented, superbly calm,
I was perplexed and dumb in a world of pain,
And aglow with the fire
Of a darkling desire
To share this balm
With the people that walk in the towns --
The slaves and the clowns.
Yet how may this thing be?
I am a lover and men will not listen to me.
I am no leader, prophet, orator,
Merely a joyous lover, however may
My word give men the help men languish for?
How may
My lonely bliss their woes allay?

I turned to where
Calm and unspeakably fair
You moved and ministered,
By happy touch and word;
Seeming to heal
Yet doing nothing real;
Flowing like a vision of clear faith --
Beautiful, and a wraith.
Then all my tangled aspiration died,
Then I went mad for love and cried:
'Away with all Whither and Whence!
Let folk full of mandatory consequence
Decry me for a dastard -- for love I live,
And the delirium that love can give!
Come lips, come blossom of breasts and crush, oh, crush
The noise of the haggling destinies into a woodland hush!
Love has me maddened and men will not listen to me;
I have forsworn endeavour and artistry,
And all my intention and heart for the race to be born,
Forsworn! forsworn!

You have become a flower
And, golden hour upon hour,
I am a bee sucking wild honey from your hair
To build a catacomb for Care.
And thus,
As bees draw honey from the crocus-cup,
I draw song-splendour up,
The substance of my dreams and my sarcophagus,
Food and housing and hope and even the white
Glory of windy ships,
Until I have become so full of golden might
That dawn, dawn, dawn, bubbles out at my lips.

Some day,
When the clouds melt back to their milky origins,
When, after their aeon raids,
The flying comets are barred like pining harlequins
At home in the final barricades,
When chains flow back to their ore,
And the dead sun takes fresh warmth to start on his rounds once more,
Then, for the wonder you put in my day
God will repay --
For the only things that He will take from the Old into the New
Are the songs I have given to you.'

Thus I, the betrayer, restore!
Enskied and apocalyptic I have become more
Than leader or prophet or orator,
And, as a warrior, brave!
The song love gave
Delivers all life from its burdening penalties:
I have made a deliverance out of the honey of bees!
The laws of the prophets are less
Than the songs I say --
Like water from a height
Their melody pours through light
A balm of healing joyousness
Over the wounds of the way.

What are you seeking, O men of the troubled brow?
Come home from the council, come home from the water, come
home from the plough!
The quest is ended; comfort ye, people afraid,
I have killed all the grief in the world with a song for a
blushing maid!





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