BEAUTY VII

To Her, I pledged my devotion in

the damasked twilight,

amid mists reflecting Morning's

dappled, dreaming gold,

within the deepening shade of

Winter's penurious Sun,

by swirling eddies that were

Autumn's crypt.

At Her altars, I knelt through the

ages and Seasons,

where Daphnis and Chloe loved;

where Crocus, Hyacinth

and Anemone sprang from the

blood of Her favoured children;

where Orpheus wept for Eurydice;

where Clytie yet pines for Apollo.

At the sonneteer's feet, I learned

her ways, at the melodist's

and painter's, for She dwells, 

it is said, in the artist's aura.

My eyes wept my soul's joy to see

the sculptor at his craft, 

as he caressed the marble into life, 

for She guided his

worshipping hand, casting Her

divine shadow upon matter,

bestowing upon it Her light.

Over ancient, arcane tomes I pored, 

imbibing mystics' precepts

and meditations. Seers expounded 

Her spirit's devices in contradictions

and inversion; 

in the merging of paradoxes; 

in displacement and death, for such

hold promises of transition.

I see Her now in the Temple blaze and

the sacrificial flame;

in flowering and decay; in the eternal

sacred cycle that directs all Life.

Here shall I praise Her, till velvet tides 

bear me to Her Universal Shrine.

© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: PINE FOREST IN LIGOVO

Source: aria-art.ru

Artist: Ivan Shishkin