a poem: “we’ve sailed, my love, o’er many a sea…”
Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them. But the Muse’s visits have outstripped my ability to keep pace with prose pieces so readers who prefer essays should peruse the archives of this site, which are replete with them.
WE’VE SAILED, my love, o’er many a sea
by winds of favour born
by fortune, fate, or destiny
we’ve never been forlorn
now gales begin to rage and howl
ancient gods to bellow
the sky is ponderous, dark, and fowl
now cleft with streaks of yellow
take these bands and make a ring
and bind me to the mast
the wind will race, the sirens sing,
I wish our love to last
wherefore holdst thou off, my love?
for urgent is the time
with spirits brooding from above
this is no pleasant clime
but you just looked on with your eyes
no action took you still
a feather of the dove that flies
travels not by its will
but loosened from the dove it must
concede to other forces
and if some spirit sends a gust
that’t from wing divorces
new winds its forward course will chart
steered by providence or chance
and though I didn’t wish us to part
our bond is but one backward glance
