My mother shaved me with a razor. When my prickles grew back: You trace Continue reading. Years are tentacles of giant squid grasping all we hold so dear Continue reading. My arms will Continue reading. I left the bar to find Continue reading. Broken decorations from last Xmas hang from Continue reading. But even after we receive the Continue reading. Peedie tottie grottie buckie. Atlantic o pressure bearan Continue reading. You are golden shafts that beam from the eyrie above the Continue reading. Summer , Summer Poetry June 13, Vera Rubin Continue reading.
Compare for instance the hundred Continue reading. Men made from tar ten thousand years ago who walked for Continue reading. Summer , Summer Poetry June 14, Derek Walcott The old master swivels his prize— winning head round the audience Continue reading. The kids were frightened of the snakes, the tortured idols of Continue reading. It draws on Continue reading. Rapefields in open blossom. You pull into a layby to savour that heady fullness of yellow, staining the air an Continue reading. Across the living room floor, bricks lie rubbled. Without fail, each morning, I carefully stub my toes, Continue reading.
He came richt intae the kitchen when A was makin the tea.
Ivory Flame Ascension
His wings Continue reading. The engine droned and wing lights pulsed as you followed the Continue reading. Spring Issue , Spring Poetry May 4, Our dates are dogs. They rush to each Continue reading. Then home again way too thin And screaming flashbacks In Continue reading. You only Continue reading. I mend and wonder where a word went as Cotton hops out of bed, feeds the herd, showers.
I have to get on my hands and knees to see it, the vacuum grumbling for a Continue reading. So of concealed sorrow may be said; Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage; But when the heart's attorney once is mute, The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.
Burneth more hotly etc.
Bestselling Series
Free vent of words - The ability to speak one's mind freely. The client - the attorney's client, i. The costume is distinctly Elizabethan, rather than that of ancient Greece. He fears that she will again try to seduce him. There is also an implication that he is looking at her with scorn. O, what a sight it was, wistly to view How she came stealing to the wayward boy!
To note the fighting conflict of her hue, How white and red each other did destroy! But now her cheek was pale, and by and by It flashed forth fire, as lightning from the sky. The legal metaphor which began flashed forth fire - hence it became red. His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print, As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint. But also lowly because she has lowered herself to the earth. As apt as - As readily as.
O, what a war of looks was then between them! Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing; His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them; Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdained the wooing: And all this dumb play had his acts made plain With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain. Her eyes petition his eyes to grant her suit request as if his eyes were some powerful judge or legal figure who could take decisions in court. And all this dumb play etc. Full gently now she takes him by the hand, A lily prisoned in a gaol of snow, Or ivory in an alabaster band; So white a friend engirts so white a foe: This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling, Showed like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
Full gently - very gently. The imagery of skin and hands being white as snow, or lilies, or alabaster, is a commonplace of love poetry of the time. Compare the Sonnets The lily I condemned for thy hand, Sonn The hands are envisaged as reflecting the attitudes of their owners. Showed like - Appeared like. Doves are often described as billing and cooing. In fact, since Adonis refuses to kiss her, the description is not entirely apposite, unless one takes it as referring to the contact of their two hands. Once more the engine of her thoughts began: The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.
Would thou wert - If only you could be. Implying that her own heart is a raw wound makes the image more vivid. For one sweet look - She now envisages how she would behave if she were the man, Adonis. In exchange for one sweet look she, as Adonis,would rush to give comfort to her lover Venus , even though the act led to her own destruction. O, give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it, And being steeled, soft sighs can never grave it: Then love's deep groans I never shall regard, Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.
Give me my hand - Return my hand to me. Venus replies in the same vein 'Return to me my heart which you hold captive. Primarily they refer to Adonis' hand, which he can have back if he returns her heart to her.
But it also refers to her heart which she implies will stay with him even if he returns it to her. But with a suggestion also of stealing. I pray you hence, and leave me here alone; For all my mind, my thought, my busy care, Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.
My day's delight - the hunting I intended to do and the delight to be gained from it. I pray you hence - I ask you to depart. Affection is a coal that must be cooled; Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire: The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none; Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone. Affection is a coal - Desire, sexual passion, is like a burning coal. Else, suffered - otherwise, being allowed to burn.
The sea hath bounds etc. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. As You Like It 4. But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee, He held such petty bondage in disdain; Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
Jade - A worthless horse. Venus continues her moralising, showing how right it was for the horse to follow the mare, just as Adonis ought to be fired up with passion for her. Servilely mastered - Held in subjection, like a slave. The sentence spans four lines. His other agents - His other bodily parts and functions. His body now wants to enjoy her, after his eyes have been sated.
To take advantage on - to make use of; to seize the opportunity. Unless it be a boar - I. My love to love etc. Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth? If springing things be any jot diminish'd, They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth: The colt that's backed and burdened being young Loseth his pride and never waxeth strong. Who - These are rhetorical questions intended to highlight how unsuitable her demands are. Who plucks the bud - Adonis implies that it is foolish to pluck a flower while still in bud and without any leaves showing on the plant.
Ivory Flame Ascension : Christine Tsen :
Things just starting to grow. Remove your siege from my unyielding heart; To love's alarms it will not ope the gate: Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery; For where a heart is hard they make no battery. Remove your siege - Adonis starts to use military metaphors. In traditional love poetry the lover besieges the beloved until the citadel her heart falls. The vows, tears, flattery are like infantry. O, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing! Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; I had my load before, now pressed with bearing: O, would thou hadst not - She would rather he had no tongue than say the things he has just said.
Thy mermaid's voice - mermaids were thought to sing sailors to their ruin.
Ivory Flame Ascension : Poems
Before he spoke, she could entertain hope. Now that he speaks, not only are the things he says unwelcome, but it is doubly unpleasant because such wondrous music as his voice is should only utter harmonious and welcome sounds. Thus your voice sorely wounds the depths of my heart, or it wounds the deep sore in my heart, or it deeply wounds the sore that is already in my heart.
- La derrota de Dios (Spanish Edition).
- Big Book of Christmas Songs for Flute (Songbook).
- Centaur Rivalry (Touched Series Book 3);
- Doktor Kessners hemlighet.
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, Yet should I be in love by touching thee. Had I no eyes - Venus goes through the senses in descending order as it were, the most precious and refined one being sight. She deprives herself of each in turn. Each part in me etc. Yet should I be in love etc. Probably a term used in alchemy.
Perhaps with a pun on exhaling. That breedeth love by smelling - the breath that you breath out, when it is smelt, causes love to be created in the one who smells it. Would they not wish the feast might ever last, And bid Suspicion double-lock the door, Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast? Or it may be that in the absence of the other four senses taste becomes the nurse and feeder of existence.
Jealousy - Also personified. Once more the ruby-coloured portal opened, Which to his speech did honey passage yield; Like a red morn, that ever yet betokened Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds. The opening of his lips allowed a passageway for his voice. Like a red morn - His mouth is like a red sunrise, which is a harbinger of bad weather.
This ill presage advisedly she marketh: Even as the wind etc. In a general sense they show how one thing occurs before another, just as the meaning of his words strikes her before he even utters them. Whether the wolf actually does this before he barks I do not know. Wolves were extinct in Shakespeare's England, so this observation must have been an item of folklore. And at his look she flatly falleth down, For looks kill love and love by looks reviveth; A smile recures the wounding of a frown; But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!
The silly boy, believing she is dead, Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;. It could mean suddenly; entirely; on her back; on her front. Traditionally the lover dies if he does not receive a kind look from his beloved. Rosalind mocks the idea in As You Like It. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause.
Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. There was probably a common belief, then as now, that becoming bankrupt could work to the banrupt person's advantage. In this and the next stanza but one he is rather comically administering first aid. Part of the effect of this, as well as being descriptive of Venus's plight, is to show what foolish passes love can bring one to. Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
For on the grass she lies as she were slain, Till his breath breatheth life in her again. Fair fall the wit - Good fortune attend such inventiveness. He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks, He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard, He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks To mend the hurt that his unkindness marred: He kisses her; and she, by her good will, Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.
Strictly speaking marred is superfluous, because the hurt has been done, and to mar a hurt is meaningless. However the construction is suggestive of extra damage done to Venus by Adonis' harsh treatment of her. The night of sorrow now is turned to day: Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth, Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array He cheers the morn and all the earth relieveth; And as the bright sun glorifies the sky, So is her face illumined with her eye;.
The night of sorrow - Compare: Sorrow is compared to night, joy to day.
- Ivory Flame Ascension by Christine Tsen · theranchhands.com!
- The United States Fact Book.
- Soldatische Erwartungen und Erfahrungen im Ersten Weltkrieg (German Edition)!
- Summer 2018?
- St Peters Basilica: A Brief Guide.
- Simon Sez: The Future or BUST : Getting Past the End of the Mayan Calendar;
The former are the windows of the soul. She is still feeling faint. The word suggests great effort. The singular noun is presumably for the sake of rhyme. Whose beams upon his hairless face are fixed, As if from thence they borrowed all their shine. Whose beams - I. Eyes were thought to emanate a beam which allowed them to see things. Modern science now knows that this idea is false. There may also be a pun on heirless. What hour is this? Do I delight to die, or life desire? But now I lived, and life was death's annoy; But now I died, and death was lively joy. But now I lived - Just a moment ago I was alive.
She refers to the experience of being kissed by Adonis But now I died - I have just died seeing the angry look on his brow. Thou didst kill me - See above: The implication is perhaps that her eyes, in revealing Adonis' beauty to her, are true servants in directing that she should love him. O, never let their crimson liveries wear! And as they last, their verdure still endure, To drive infection from the dangerous year! That the star-gazers, having writ on death, May say, the plague is banished by thy breath. Long may they kiss etc. Perhaps if his lips continue to kiss each other, he will not be able to utter harsh words, and by his silence she will thereby be offered a cure for his former harshness.
Venus now begins to attach a universal significance to his red lips. It is probably his breath which Venus sees as driving away the infection, rather than the verdure of his lips. Sonnet 14 gives an idea of what asrologers or astronomers as they were also called might predict. Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; And yet methinks I have Astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind, Or say with princes if it shall go well By oft predict that I in heaven find Sonn.
To sell myself I can be well contented, So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing; Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips. This brings her to th imagery of a legal document being stamped with a seal which follows in the rest of the stanza. The word also meant counterfeit coins.
Set thy seal-manual - Manually impress the seal. What is ten hundred touches unto thee? Are they not quickly told and quickly gone? A thousand kisses - She pretends to bargain with him. She will sell her heart which he already has, for a thousand kisses.
The stanza is reminiscent of Catullus' poem Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus , Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, in which he requests her to give him a thousand kisses. See the notes above to lime The language has links with the Merchant of Venice, and the offer to pay the debt to Shylock twenty times over.
Before I know myself, seek not to know me; No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears: The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast, Or being early plucked is sour to taste. Fair queen - He addresses her formally. As a goddess she has regal qualities. The language picks up the finacial metaphor of the previous stanza. Let my shyness be accounted for by my youth.
In the bible 'to know' sometimes has the meaning of 'to have sexual intercourse'. No fisher but -There is no fisherman who does not. Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face. The honey fee of parting - The sweet kiss, which is the payment due on parting. The lines are reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet parting: Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow. From the Latin root corpus, body. Till, breathless, he disjoined, and backward drew The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth, Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew, Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth: He with her plenty pressed, she faint with dearth Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.
It refers to the heavenly moisture and coral mouth of the next line. Venus now is personified as desire itself. He yields because he cannot fight her anyway, as she is a goddess. The word still had meanings associated with the Latin word, insultare - to exult, triumph over. The word is assosciated with falconry, where it means the height to which a bird will soar. Probably not necessary to interpret this too literally.
The riches is not necessarily his saliva, but the mere fact that she can have contact with his lips. And having felt the sweetness of the spoil, With blindfold fury she begins to forage; Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil, And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage, Planting oblivion, beating reason back, Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack. Cupid is depicted as blind, so it is fitting that Venus herself, under the influence of love, behaves as if she were blindfolded. The two words mean much the same. Planting oblivion -Setting in place in her mind total heedlessness and disregard of morality.
She wants more than mere kissing, but Adonis is not responsive. What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering, And yields at last to every light impression?