Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Psyche and Zephyr


Wind from the west,
with your invitation to fly away with you:
but to what?
Where will you carry me?
High above the world, yes:
but my dreams have already carried me there.

I have seen already
the wonders of the clouds,
I have felt already
the touch of the moon’s dusty face 
as she sails these seas of early summer.
I know well enough
how the world looks from your realm,
the drowsy shepherds of Arcadia,
lovers, lost to all but themselves,
the way the sails of ships
seem like wind-borne feathers
on the sea’s swell and fall far below:
I have seen them all in dreams
and know how small they are
from these celestial heights.

What more can you show me?
You have promised me all and everything
and you continue to make your promises
even as we both rise.
But do you not realise
how thin the air now grows?
And how fierce the heat of the approaching sun?
Still you continue to make your promises
even as we both rise.

But do you not understand
that in the thin air of these heights
I now can hardly hear you?
And if you carry me higher
into this sky-borne silence
I will not hear your promises at all?




Detail of Night and Sleep by Evelyn de Morgan

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