Honesuckle and Roses

[abu nuwas]

All around the Godehead shone,
And all around the land laid warm,
Where we in the Garden were gone,
For the sight of the Hound asleep,
asleep with the Hare in his form.

Yea, Gode came up, up in the Sky,
Into the Sky He rode;
Then we below did watch Him fly
And all in the Garden glowed.

Petals purple pink down sent He,
Sent in a perfumed plume
Of Dog-rose and the Rambler-tree,
To carpet our grassy room.

Oliverine thou wast y-clept
Odovacar was I
Upon thy silks I had not wept
Upon my sack thou didst not cry.

Yet now,with Gode and all His Moment gone,
Alone we make our way,
Sans the brilliant light that shone,
Sans Gold, sans joy, sans playful play.

[Wildcard]

I hesitate to ask, but all my googling didn't get me anywhere on this one. 'Godehead' which I took for a typo at first yielded links about Hinduism and Jews for Jesus. Oliverine and Odovacar list as archaic names but didn't provided any further background. The capitalized 'Hare', 'Hound', 'Sky', 'Garden', etc. make me think about Aesop . . . I give :p can you give me a hint?

[abu nuwas]

I hesitate to ask, but all my googling didn't get me anywhere on this one. 'Godehead' which I took for a typo at first yielded links about Hinduism and Jews for Jesus. Oliverine and Odovacar list as archaic names but didn't provided any further background. The capitalized 'Hare', 'Hound', 'Sky', 'Garden', etc. make me think about Aesop . . . I give :p can you give me a hint?

It is a bit difficult, but I was just thinking of a kind of mediaeval fantasy if you will, where this couple are looking back with regret on a kind of golden time, and place, a sort of Garden of Eden from which they have managed to get chucked out or where it has all collapsed -- quite a common occurrence, then, and now. A more spiritual version of Scarlet O'Hara a few years down the road. I can't really spell it all out, Mark, but the capitals stuff, is a reflection in part of a certain type of Middle Eastern mysticism as translated (no caps in Arabic) like this, from the very beginning of Fitzgerald's 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam'

'Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to flight'

Odovacar was the name of the leader of a Germanic Horde, who ruled Italy,after the fall of Rome, until overthrown by the Ostrogoth, Theoderic, who split him in two with one single blow of his sword, commenting 'The poor fellow can have had no bones!'

[Wildcard]

You are so smart Thanks for a quick reply. You and Leanne make me Google more than anyone here

[billy]

the language is beautiful, though for me the sans, takes some of it's beauty away. four sans felt too sansy. the hound and the hare is a great simile for the lion and the lamb. the rhyme scheme is good enough not be noticeable. i always thought it was yclept?
The loss of (word of choice here) in the last verse is evident and poignantly so. no need to do a line by, because i enjoyed it all (apart from a couple of sans. this was indeed a poetical piece of poetry, which, when done this well is pretty rare, i too looked up Odovacar then realized who it was when i saw how he was slain.

thanks you for an exercise in how to be poetical.

[abu nuwas]

Thank you Billy. The hound and hare were not intended to stand for the lion and the lamb. You are probably right about 'yclept'.

I used Odovacar, because it was familiar to me, but not with the intent of writing a snippet of his autobiography.

[billy]

we take what we can hehe.
the main thing i got from your poem was a feeling of what poetry must feel like.
i know this will sound really shitty; words being what the poetry is made of, but i think poetry is more than words.
it's what you have left when you take the mere words out of the poem. poetry is left and if they're lucky, the reader can bathe in the poetry; the words are just bathwater, the poetry is the warm feeling when you soak or the shiver when the cold invigorates.
you could have substituted oliverine and odovacar for a multitude of others and it would still have been what poetry should feel like.

i got carried away didn't i i would buy a book of poetry like this, or steal it should i be broke

[abu nuwas]

we take what we can hehe.
the main thing i got from your poem was a feeling of what poetry must feel like.
i know this will sound really shitty; words being what the poetry is made of, but i think poetry is more than words.
it's what you have left when you take the mere words out of the poem. poetry is left and if they're lucky, the reader can bathe in the poetry; the words are just bathwater, the poetry is the warm feeling when you soak or the shiver when the cold invigorates.
you could have substituted oliverine and odovacar for a multitude of others and it would still have been what poetry should feel like.

i got carried away didn't i i would buy a book of poetry like this, or steal it should i be broke

I am flattered. Of course I was also playing around to see how far one could push archaistic language. You are dead right about the names, and I think I agree with every word you say. After all, we do not ask what some favorite piece of music 'means'; sometimes (if we can get them) lyrics will stay with us, but it is not necessary. I think the same is true of poetry. Thanks again, Billy

[Ca ne fait rien]

You can almost hear the recorders and dulcimers- the repetitions in

"For the sight of the Hound asleep,
asleep with the Hare in his form. "

and

"Yea, Gode came up, up in the Sky,
Into the Sky He rode;"

make this like a Cecil Sharpe folk song or even a lullaby. The visuals smack of somewhere between Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Favouritest lines

"Upon thy silks I had not wept
Upon my sack thou didst not cry."

Poesy. yes.

[abu nuwas]

A bass recorder, several trebles and tenors, a dozen descants, and one sopranino- -- and numerous viols!

Thank you, Stef, I suppose it could be set to music. I am glad you enjoyed it. E