The Bower

THE BOWER

You fell asleep this morning,
Beneath the rarefied glow of our castle's tallest tower,
As the burgeoning light was dawning,
In the soft and tender cradle
Of the spacious, florid bower.
Your repose was sweet,
As if your mind was drenched with wine,
Poured from The Shepherd's golden ladle.
You dreamt beside the white, wooden lattice
Where the sprawling vines meet,
Beside the stone wall, strewn with vine.
Your soul ascended thrice:
Once to the massive, wavering oak trees;
And then, with rapture, over the crystal ice
Of the radiant, wintry pond,
Carried on the brisk, matin breeze.
And then for a third time,
Your spirit went beyond,
To the Cathedral's dome
As its bells did chime,
In the cloudless, hesperidian sky.
You transcended the aesthetic heights
Of Greece in its golden age, of Imperial Rome,
Before the coming of Germanic knights.
And your precious lips of red did sigh
With a languorous, emotive, plaintive cry,
Of ecstasy and passion. And bye and bye,
You longed for my kiss and the caress of my hand.
Your hair lay like diamonds upon the marble divan,
And its scented tresses released a rapturous command
Over every corner of the magnificent bower,
Over every sunlit bloom on the snowy, gilded lawn.
And as midday ascended, leaving behind the gold, celestial dawn,
The slender, blue brooks, with a sacred melody
Burst through the courtyards mystically,
From the spacious garden's multihued borders,
And overflowed upon the drowsy meads
Which glistened like jewelry in the fantastic, pearl white sun.
Then your sable gaze and the light became one,
As you awoke like an angel from your soft, sweet slumber.
Your vision took in the diamond stars of the hydra,
Of an innumerable number,
And every other blessed gift which the noonday umbra
Was pleased to bestow
To your lovely gaze,
Surrounded by boughs of vanilla and redolent oleanders
Which glittered in the cloister's glittering glow.
And in the quivering, dusky diadems of your waking haze,
More prophetic than all of the world's Cassandras,
And teeming with silvery blue cascades,
You took my hand and bequeathed to me
In your state of beauteous, blinding bliss
A wonderful, warm, womanly kiss,
As I raised you, embracing, from the bower's divan.
The saffron reads awoke, half-dreaming and wan,
Stretching their heads, indolently pale,
Releasing burgundies, port and ale.
We strolled as in a dream down the stone paved trail,
In a soporific, languishing, alabaster mist,
At one with the blessing of The Virgin's immaculate veil,
That glorious adornment, the crown of our tryst.
And in that Cupid's halcyon, Cyprian breeze
We fell into another well,
Lost in our felicitous, romantic spell,
Of sanctified, sacred ecstasies.
And the cherubim sang,
As in the northern distance
A church bell rang,
Clad with feathery, soft, auriferous snow.
It chimed with languor, high and low,
To the glories of the holly green mountains,
To the towering columns, among the sunlit fountains,
To our reticent bastion, here below.
And we passed as a god and goddess
Beneath an ivory colonnade,
As we roved to the bower's rosy edge,
Upon the luminous, sunny promenade,
To the heights of the ruddy, roseate ledge,
Of the exquisite cornice,
More beautiful than dreams,
Adorned with Elysian wines,
Cool to the taste, melting from the streams
Of coconut flavored, ambrosial ice,
Descending over the cliff to the sea,
Beneath the massive, swaying pines,
Which rumble so majestically.

John Lars Zwerenz