Have Chains Of Sadness Bound You Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

after John Dowland

have chains of sadness bound you;
ropes of tears?
through the gloom I see

the dismal jewels shine
festooning ancient madrigals or rather,
like the sun, it's climbed above

the dense, deep graphite
grey of thunderheads,
a gold at a far remove, ineffectual-

in a Storybook
whose pages you are loath to turn.

Beclouded is that picture,
the one I have in mind
and no shepherds piping

in a greening meadow's clime
can I infer:
above, below, on either side

I see strange Melancholy
on a throne of ice,
the vain assays of knights

up the glassine hill,

the silver apples rolling down,
like tears, like tears
in the stymied after tones

of all our years
consigned to the workhouse of the shrill.
like a ship that won't be turned,

the ice bound will.

mary angela douglas 27 september 2016