A Garden Of Bright Images (Prologue) Poem by Mark Williams

From life, and realms of the imagining,
A Garden of Bright Images to you I bring:
Find love in these word-pictures of the mind,
And in the song for you alone I sing.

1
My song is for all seasons, for all time:
For all time gone, and for all days to be;
The silent contemplation of infinity,
And all the wondrous beauty of the Rhyme
Of Love: the endless tale of you and I.

The music echoes, but can never die:
The Words of Love outlast the centuries
Through which we walk, together or alone,
Secure in faith through countless lives unknown,
Until the resolution of Life's mystery.

Under a thousand suns, a thousand skies,
The vow lives on in such fair words as these -
And thoughts of love that ever will arise
So long as I can hold your promise close to me.


2
And, if our lives are one brief span alone,
No less the strength of feeling will remain:
There in the scarlet magic of the dawn,
And through the seamless, slow transition of the day,
Until the rain tree-shadow lengthens on the lawn

And halcyon light subsides to shadow-play;
Angel of Life, with you then will I stray
Below a depthless sky ablaze with crimson light,
Until the jewels of evening swim and rise
In the great celestial ocean of the night.

And, though rarer jewels may shine in darker skies,
I see the bright reflection of my love for you
In the lapis-light enchantment of your eyes,
And know the sweet attainment of desire.

And, may it shine forever, clear and true,
Beyond that time when life itself expires:
In this, and other lives to come, our paths will meet;
And in the circle of your love, I am complete.