O Lachrimae Pavane: To The Postmodern Poets That They May Turn Back (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

Turn again, Whittington, Thrice Lord Mayor of London...

-from an old English folk tale: Dick Whittington And His Cat

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

how could you make of this language a desert track
and spurn the illumination of each distant age
I weep slow tears upon the page
knowing for certain rich gardens once blossomed there
now all is arid and spare and cynically dressed
if at all
twigged is the landscape absent of birds
and men have banished the golden words
the words the honeyed worlds had spun
remember Shakespeare, Keats or Donne
or else, be taciturn.
what have you done o lachrimae pavane!
their words had dazzled had made the soul
and blinded prose
or Yeats had plucked his fraught Rose indomitable
out of the web of a faithless. degenerate Time
and given a voice to dreaming again
almost, you had drowned
and called the ancient musical winds
back to their Source, to begin again
that you have forfeited for menial hire
without a single shot being fired.
turn back!

mary angela douglas 20 january 2022; 22 march 2023