Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Variations of Shakespeare
A Midsummer's Night's Dream
Days will steep themselves in nights. Nights will quickly dream away the time, and then the moon, like a silver bowe new bent in the night, shall behold the night of our solemnities
The course of true love never did run smooth. War, death, or sickness often lays siege to it, making it momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow..short as a dream, brief as lightning in a collier's night that unfolds both heaven and Earth. Love is more often not what it seems
And if anyone had the metal to say, "Behold! The jaws of darkness devour it up," so quick would bright things come to confusion. True love is a weighty cross, a heavy edict for destiny, teaching trial by patience. It is a customary cross, as due to love as thought, and dreams, and sighs...wishes and tears, and poor fantasy's followers
In love, what can devoured eyes mirror?..but the willingness of a dark secret, an unfathomable world ready to reveal itself. So be not fast! Be wise. Love not through lies, for even things base and vile holding no quality can love transpose to beauty and dignity
Love sees not with eyes, but in mind with a heart of time, and thuswise is winged Cupid painted blind. Yet, while love tempers itself with time, so often are senses new, that love's eye may as often have no judgment, taste, nor powers of discretion, which is why Cupid is said to be a child, as often as it can be old and wise
And so did the infirmities of a solitary existence purge itself so readily..so wholeheartedly in the middle of summer's spring, for in love's absence, dark desire is the sole occupant of an afflicted soul, and false love's name, jealousy, perceives a bleak world. Indeed, only with such darkness can the winds pipe to us some revenge sucked up from the sea..contagious fogs which, falling upon the land, have every pelting river made so proud that they have overborn their continents
The ox stretched his yoke in vain. The young plowman, having lost his sweat, gained a grey beard. The fold stands empty in a drowned field. Crows are fatted with floating seeds. Quaint working tracks in the resplendent green are indistinguishable, no longer seen
This immortality wants to winter here in the deluge of its desires, for no night now is with the blessings of song. The moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger, causes the air to wash until rheumatic diseases abound, and through this distemper of love, we see the seasons alter, and the horrid headed frosts fall into the fresh lap of a crimson rose
Jealousy, calling itself love, has an icy crown, and with sweet fragrance of summer buds, mocks the seasons...the spring, the summer..humble autumn, and dormant winter, as to change their wanted nature. A world crazed with jealous passions by their increase knows not which season is which. Thus, this progeny of darkness lives demanding or dies..not from what is between or for, but where self'love precluding all else, lies
Tis strange the things lovers speak of. So far more strange than true that I may never give much weight to its substance, for lovers and madmen have such seething brains with fantasies that apprehend more than what cool reason could ever comprehend. The lunatic, the lover, the poet...all with imagination compact. Only they see more devils than vast hell can hold..that is, the madman..the lover, all as frantic, sees sweet beauty even in the most awkward dark things
The poet's eye in a fine madness, glances from heaven to Earth..Earth to heaven, and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing, a local habitation and a name
Such an occupation requires such a strong imagination that, if it would apprehend some joy, it comprehends some creator of that joy, or in the night, imagining some fear, how easy does a knot in wood become the devil's ear
But like a sultry midsummer's night's dream, seen over and over, transfiguring and melding minds..more than these fantasy images, something great and beautiful does inevitably spring into life from lover's myrrh, however awry..from lover's mirth, however strange