The Muse

27.04.10

She breezes in,—a sudden gust of light,
A flash of truth in the poet’s mind—
Unsettles the drowsing dream-dust and fancy fragments
Left-over from the previous poem.
Surveys the confused state of affairs:
The waking mind, the yawning ideas;
Flirts awhile with the thirsty questions that throng about her
Groping for her bright presence, begging to be slaked;
Smiles coyly at the virgin phrases that beg their Priestess
To make them whole, to marry them at the altar of Truth;
Hears the poet’s sweet entreaties, his coaxing flattery
His vows of being forever hers;
Plays hard to get, blushes, and then
With a quick galvanic giggle that briefly shocks the teeming brain
Lets drop a magic word, as if by chance . . .
It flutters down like a bright leaf, autumn-blown
Or like the drunken flutter of butterflies;
She pretends not to see as he stretches out to receive it,
Waits ’till he thinks he has it, then whisks it away in a swift flurry
Of befuddling thoughts that cloud his vision,
Laughing in secret as she sees the frantic mind
Struggle to catch it with clumsy thought-fingers
Confused with dreams of moon-filled vales,
Of elfin tales and lilting faery warbles.
They wander awhile as nomad-snails in a sleeping glade,
Leaving myriad dream-entangled trails…
And then thrill in anticipation of a something—
Which isn’t the brilliant glimpse, the magic word.
She mocks his searching, greedy mental hands,
Shakes her smiling head at the great hunger
Of so small and crippled an intellect,
And when he shakes his fist at her in a rage
Of frustrated abandonment,
She soothes his burning brow with a balmy stillness;
Blows dream-clouds into his waiting brain,
Dream-clouds pregnant with poetic rain
That the thirsting heart draws down…
At last, in an impassioned burst, she hurls a blazing lightning-bolt
Unleashing intense volts of inspiration.
As the soul drinks in the first drops
the poet weeps mad tears
Through his pen.