an-men ~ runamorian

a world collapsing   

musica ellectronica viva ~ milton babbitt ~ vladimir ussachevsky ~ hugh la caine ~ bebe barron ~ louis barron ~ oskar sala ~ jorge peixinho ~ edgard varese ~ richard maxfield ~ tod dockstader ~ otto luening ~ clara rockmore ~ olivier messiaen ~ pierre schaeffer ~ john cage ~ herbert eimert ~ jean-claude risset ~ iannis xenakis ~ la monte young ~ charles dodge ~ telectu ~ paul lansky ~ laurie spiegel ~ bernard parmegiani ~ david behrman ~ john chowing ~ maryanne amacher ~ robert ashley ~ alvin curran ~ alvin lucier ~ jon hassell ~ raymond scott ~ pauline oliveros ~ joji yuasa ~ morton subotnik ~ david tudor ~ luc ferrari ~ [...]

> 

runamorian (sleeve art by wassily blossfeldt for ars publica, 2011)

the new recording is available on

catalogueofwonders.bandcamp.com

in november 2011 exclusively.

I have made you mad;

and even with such-like valour, men hang and drown

their proper selves ~ this is said on the entrance to the labyrinth [...] beware, strange noises are heard in the night when it is day and odd movements occur in the days of beaches and gold when in reality it is so dark and so deep black. but then these incongruences are what made of us mad thinkers and stupid laughters, come in, do come in and drink of the licquor and inebriate the senses [...] to think too much is to be a fool, indeed. we shall go on this voyage, at your peril, i warn you, through the invented books of prospero by the avalon painter and poet; do not strange the language. once here the rest subsides like nightmares and once out, if so you could, you will have nothing but a shade of a dream and all will be forgotten. strange is the world and beauty the animals and beasts of the human kind and race. is an-men a/the labyrinth? will we/you ever know who/what is an-men? we hope that by the end of this voyage of discovery we come out indulged in our ignorance ~ pastures of odd sounds and lyrical water-proof resistant dreams to traverse and navigate, compass, astrolabe, jealousy, underground rivers of delusion and narcotic effect > maybe an-men is all that, perhaps nothing at all, just a mirror (see A Book Of Mirrors) ~

welcome to an-men'sgozyasi ~

                                       a catalogue of mirrors ~

                                                             photograph by suna aktas

~an-men is great, in fact it has to be among my favourite ever discoveries at soundcloud period. It's the kind of music you don't get to hear very often because some people still seem to be focused on 'big productions' and 'musical content' to an extent that only reveals their personal insecurities about music. An-men strikes me as very simple yet very powerful and equally elegant at the very same time.  ~ phirnis

as this is a labyrinth full of wonders and catalogues, we shall start with the mythological list of those books interred inside caliban's tripes, once, now defunct the sepia pages within the realm of neptune ~ the mermaids laugh and medusa masturbates with a feather of an angel's wing. heila! alas! the counting of dreams and books ~ nothing more than we are:

 The Book Of Water 

the thing that has pleased me most is that i have been able to reject. the greatest labour i have expended, perhaps, was on works that have never been completed ~  j. sibelius

an-men ~ music: image of the perfect kiss,

               a golden embrace,

               the eternal companion.

               morning ice in my eyes,

               where to go

               and what to do ~

               iced heart

               of unknown pleasures...

               thawing love

               on your heart,

               the rose pulsing,

               hey! they say,

               love's a hunter,

               hands dripping words

               on the lap of the prey,

               love's blood of stars,

               coral of memories ~ an infinite moment.

               hey! they say,

               darkness loves the moon

               of lovers embraced

               too soon to depart ~

               hey ho, here they go,

               not to stay

               on iced tortures

               here i go

               unknown morning

               unknown love,

               i leave you, nec spe nec metu ~

               hey! they say!

 >

A  Book Of Mirrors

i undo myself os papers and all was a last urgent truth. i burn the melancholy. the yellow. the grey years. the laces. the singularity. protographs. intimate things.

you persist discoloured striking punches that makes memories yell anticipating the dreams. yoy are in time's avidness the word sits on the floor measuring the distances of a known story. the inhabited returns, the balast. i undo myself. moving the roots.

eurydice, by emmanuel de sousa

translated by an-men

A Book Of Mythologies

A  Primer Of The Small Stars

 An  Atlas Belonging  To Orpheus

 A Harsh Book Of  Geometry 

The Book Of Colours 

The  Vesalius  Anatomy Of   Birth 

 An  Alphabetic  Inventory Of  The  Dead

A Book Of Travellers  Tales

> forms and voices, common themes, fragmentation, metamorphosis, collapse, collages, sudden shifys, fragility, entropy, mutation, re-configuration: an-men's gozyasi.

The  Book Of  The Earth 

A  Book Of  Architecture & Other Music 

all music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments,

it is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums,

nor the score of the baritone singing his sweet romanza,

nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's chorus,

it is nearer and farther than they.

'a song for occupations' (in 'leaves of grass')

by walt whitman, 1855

The Ninety-Two Conceits Of The Minotaur 

 cata10 > aaradh >

aaradh [ah.ah.rah.de], paradox; obscure; problem; equation; hide, to hide, hidden. from Music for Angels: paradox. paradoxes. paradoxical. that's what we are. human beings, i must make it very clear. we lost centuries; we still do, searching for the stories that explain our origins, our roots. We are obsessed by them. They, the sages and magicians were told those things in dreams, hallucinations, shamans breathing strong fumes and shouting in spasms the words of gods and goddesses, but they never found a home in those words. they are empty, stories made of words and premonitions and the ones who told them. men and gods! we'll never find a home within these ancient motets, the canons are too humane, and the gods are too weak to believe in themselves. there's no home where there isn't a heart in. the clouds gathering in the empty skies, for the wind cries of late. even the men who never lied is capable of believe.the string in the Labyrinth that will help to find the way out. pandora's box. ariadne playing the sitar in a sky of burning words. 

one of the more unlikely conceptions of greek mythology, the offspring of pasiphaë and a bull, for which she had developed a passion, gratified through the contrivance of poseidon. the queen placed herself in an artificial cow made by daedalus, and so became the mother of the monster, half-man half-bull, a man with a bull's head. minos, the husband of pasiphaë, shut him up in the cnossian labyrinth, and there fed him with the seven youths and seven maidens, whom athens was obliged t supply at fixed periods, as a tribute, until theseus, with the help of ariadne, slew the monster. 

with a little luck, you’ll dismiss this labour, react as zampano had hoped, call it needlessly complicated, pointlessly obtuse, prolix – your word -, ridiculously conceived, and you’ll believe all you’ve said, and then you’ll put it aside – though even here, just that one word, “aside”, makes me shudder, for what is ever really just put aside? – and you’ll carry on, eat, drink, be merry and most of all you’ll sleep well.

then again there’s a good chance you won’t.

this much i’m certain of: it doesn’t happen immediately. you’ll finish and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. you’ll be sick of feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. it won’t matter. out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you’ll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. for some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. you’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. but you won’t understand why or how. you’ll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place.

old shelters – television, magazines, movies – won’t protect you anymore. you might try scribbling in a journal, on a napkin, maybe even in the margins of this book. that’s when you’ll discover you no longer trust the very walls you always took for granted. even the hallways you’ve walked a hundred times will feel longer, much longer, and the shadows, any shadow at all, will suddenly seem deeper, much, much, deeper.

you might try then, as i did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. only no sky can blind you now. even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. you’ll care only about the darkness and you;ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. it will get so bad you’ll be afraid to look away, you’ll be afraid to sleep.

then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you’ve ever lived by. you’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. and then for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.

and then the nightmares will begin.

     minotaur, (c) 2002 by edward lacqueur, photography / collage

The Book Of Llanguages 

in their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs

in their dreams their brains took each other hostage.

ted hughes, in 'lovesong'

End-Plants 

A Book Of Love 

a book of love, peter greenaway said, is a small, slim, scented volume bound is red and gold, with knotted crimson ribbons for page-markers. there is certainly an image in the book of a naked man and a naked woman, and also an image of a pair of clasped hands. these things were once spotted, briefly, in a mirror. mister greenaway ended by saying that that mirror was in another book. everything else is conjecture, and mister greenaway sighed.

i'll follow you and make a heaven out of hell, and I'll die by your hand which i love so well. said the bard long time ago and things went all wrong, as we can see. in the deserts, hell is a gift from heaven and skies and sands are one and only; then one can hide in the fresh waters of a cenote, that like the name it is very difficult to find and understand. oasis sometimes are protected by gods and goddesses very jealous of their hidden waters and they poison the wells - that way news of a well does not spread and they stay languid and alone with their secret lagoons and cenotes, wells and diminute streams... beware of the desert and its gods and goddesses, they love their treasures and will do anything to stay camouflaged and unknown. so far they kept their skills at work and it is indeed very difficult to find them. just like a precious book of love, where is one to find, a truly red and gold with a crimson ribbon as a page-marker? like the gods, this tome is unknown and only the poets, those fools, talk and write and dream of them with an easy fervour and certainty. they believe hell can become heaven, but, as one said, they are fools and a book of love is a myth. maybe only the mirrors of poets can show a book of love. or perhaps these mirrors are ingenuous artifacts so well disguised that it is even more rare and strange to find one, even odder than the one related and discussed by the poets (that never have seen a copy!) ~ perhaps these mirrors where the poets dispose themselves to find a book of love is another mirage, like poetry, and that is music ~ let's argue that a book of love can be found, otherwise as mirrors or in music ~ as we know all the orignals are unfaithful to the translations. a book of love only exists if you fall in love, one said, but then to fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. eternal return to fathom and disbelieve.

A  Bestiary Of  Past, Present  & Future Animals

The  Book  Of  Utopias

The  Book Of  Universal  Cosmography  

keznu [keh.zz.noo], male wearing a feminine hairdo, part of the festivities of fertility to samuqan and iyfut. the boys and girls’ rites of puberty consists of dancing, clapping, and playing the pipes and drums and erotic trances. 

wip katt’reez, the naked versicles (anonymous author, dated 1576): but the boys are masturbating by the river, moaning and looking at each other like ferocious carnivorous panthers in lust, tongues touching the chin catching the wind’s vibrations… the hands vibrating - the erect phalluses explodes in myriad’s of howling and screaming, the blood in white shape floating in the thin air. these boys know some secrets.

by the lagoon they watch my mazy skin when passing and they say words no one else can understand, except my eyes: i strip naked in the waters and they come covering me with the fleshy thick tongues, every lick is fire and combustion of the cells. i die and drown, the lake freezes and i wake up in the beginning of spring with the swan’s feathers in my belly…

(…) one of the swan boys has got a phallus with a rose shaped head full of blood - the colour of the purest blood - and another smiles & the birds stop singing…

(…) and meanwhile i know i'm crazy.  i burn all the letters, all the books. little traveller player in the aurora, i invent the methods to forget. well, what's left? what's left but forgetting, forgetting?

a man that thinks he is a king; it's a lunatic. a king that thinks he is a king is too a madman. and a lunatic who thinks he is a lunatic, what is he?  a fool? a sane person? a king?

(…) to me apollo was a girl in disguise. febo was a girl dressed as a boy. venus was a boy re-arranging gender just for fun.  someone will write a song about this, sooner or later. i'm sure of that. and samuqan is the funniest of them all, playing tricks of a small god in earth just to confuse the mortals. and the gods know very well that nature is nothing but that, earth and water and fire and air.

magic is the fact that samuqan was a girl behaving like a boy. transmutation of gold into stories, the salt of human hood.’     

(…) the winter morning is too cold to go outside. but i dare and stay inside you for a while. but one feels the need to go and walk in between the bushes to sneak the boys by the lake. it is the way they move and scratch each other that attracts me to them, the fine design of the ribs, the nipples of brown tones, the belly button and the tattoos in the ankles. when they speak they hiss like small silver snakes with pearls for eyes. they build secret lures on earth and cover themselves in green mud, you can think they are statues fornicating for eternity. but i shall not know about them, i just need to pretend i don’t and they will caress me - tempting me to stay with them. but one looks and a gesture of obligation and they set me free. our flesh is pure, we don’t have rules or moral, just like the bird’s beaks on rotten flesh of some dead bird on the autumn leaves. let them stay like they are, free and without houses. they have their own words made of scintillating saliva, their own cathedrals built in shared flesh opened in the freezing air – maybe that’s why they smile so dangerously, like the song of the calling in the eastern mosques, maybe more powerful than the call of the sun. they are they, and that’s enough.

but it is too late to know how to get out. the mazy skin shrinking, the drums beating golden and leather songs about the swan boys… i must forget that my eyes should be blind. the smoke in the walls painting arabian nights, the distant sound of a flute playing in the dark. that must be plenty to survive here. i close my eyes, again sleeping. the morning is too cold to go outside. indolence in the mid-air. go; let’s go to sleep. blessed…

(…) recognize the steps to make. sand moves and you are lost, but just in that you will go same way somewhere. loop after loop the path circles. you are here and somewhere at the very same time, aware and awake. music comes and goes, snakes drawing on the floor, two suns and some moons of diverse colour.

signs do not mean what you think because everything changes so fast. just let it flow. the girls smile like angels, if you know what angel’s smiles look like. open the window and let the fresh air enter your mind. the steps around these places are very uncommon. %u25A0

Love  Of  Ruins

kebili [qheh.bee.lee] (also known as nun, the primordial waters); 1. the house of the double axe (palace of minos); 2. the labyrinth (complicated and irregular network of passages or paths, membranous canals, chambers of intricate and tangled arrangements, 6763.) 3. kebili was once said to be like oceanus, the son of gaia (earth) and ouranos (sky), masculine and feminine, black and white, thus the opposite same character. ‘from the waters kebili raised potent and erect, majestic rock surrounded by mother water’ (6775.)

from the yyzar poetica:

the most beautiful example of labyrinth was given to see in a great illustration of that rare exemplar of the work of constancius apprillada, philosopher and genius architect from the xv and xvi centuries; genovese of a distinct application to the mysteries of mathematics and metaphysics, and where he discourses about those absurd constructions, stone and thoughts that since immemorial times fascinates us (…) on that manuscript i could observe the several levels and obstacles of that semi-subterranean construction, for where you entered through a tiny door on the marble roof. its interior, accordingly to detailed illustrations (for sure fantasies) is furnished of magnificent saloons with frescoes and columns that moved with the walls, activated by a hydraulic precise and complex mechanism, fed by a underground river and by a ‘cauldron of hot vapours and steams fuming from the entrails and tripe’s of fecund and black earth, powerful and monstrous ancient force’ at the disposal of the architect of that gigantic edifice. (…) its location it is mysterious until today. as there was only one level at earth prime, and again accordingly to apprillada, the building was built on a place of great dislocation of sands (possibly a desert?); it is natural that the edifice today is under earth. (…) the purpose of this sublime nexus and plexus bifurcated corridors, saloons and rooms for the deposit of alexandria’s tomes; it would be so an underground library for humanity, protected by ‘miraculous and haunting powers’ of ancient engineers, architects and artists.

anne kilmer (quoted by randy p. conner in blossom of bone) says that ‘the axe of gilgamesh’s dream is not only meant to convey the action of chopping – an action possibly linked to ritual castration – but also to indicate as association with between this axe, called a hassinu, and a gender-variant priest, an assinnu. she further suggests that the other object of gilgamesh dreams, the shooting star, or kizru, is used in the story to remind the mesopotamian reader of the term kezru, which signifies a male wearing a feminine hairdo, or in other words a male hierodulic priest (or male prostitute). ‘the implication of the double pun is, of course, that the often suspected (…) sexual relationship between gilgamesh and enkidu is, after all, the correct interpretation.’ 

kebili is composed of the signs for penis (tamen) and vagina (iyfut).

(book of death, 4056:)

the circulation of shadows: don't forget that before you had entered the labyrinth someone built it, someone designed the corners and the traps, that the drawing is something erected on purpose to fool you. don't forget that the exit is known by now, so try to understand the riddles and the writings of those before you. legends are not always myths and mistake, maybe they have a kind of ancient knowledge you have to decipher accordingly with your time, in most cases of their time.

time is volatile, it comes and goes, time is always the same, only men die and is born, not time, because it doesn't exist. 

on the other side, entering the labyrinth is a solitary mystery, an ordeal of personal ghosts and remembrances; you must be on your own, free and naked. like old games, not always logic prevails as the line to follow.

and this labyrinth changes its configuration. where before was a pond now is a small tower with flowers embroidered on the walls. where there was a tree is now a fountain of golden liquors. remember that the makers of the labyrinth just want to play a game with you. you are a manipulated piece, a substitute pawn in this game. what you'll do someone has done before, and the makers of the building know all the rules and laws that you have to discover.

find your own synchronicity. unfold your own map and draw it yourself. once you enter the labyrinth you lose all the rights, you are a captive of it. so, build your own defences. be happy in there, because you can turn yourself into beauty, and be of art. who knows the purpose of this enormous machine?

from the yyzar poetica:

gian-battista della porta said: the parts of the body contain in between themselves mutual correspondences; for example the opening, the hole of the mouth and the thickness of the lips, or its smallness denote which is (the size) of the aperture of women’s shame parts; the same way the nose shows which one is the membrum virilis.

   egyptian lists give the number of nomes as forty-two or forty-four, although the classical writers strabo, diodorus and pliny are not in agreement with these figures. strabo tells us that the labyrinth contained twenty-seven chambers, each representing a nome. two of these were in upper egypt, ten in lower egypt and seven in heptanomis. herodotus, on the other hand, claims that the labyrinth contained twelve halls, and pliny lists forty-five nomes, names of which were obviously hellenised. [6797, quoted by murry hope in the sirius connection; vide yyzar poetica, ophiuro]

   the pornographer writer urno bro was a wide traveller and registered on his diaries the time when he visited the egyptian labyrinth (and the account of the visit is very similar to that one of herodotus, below, seemingly a copy).

‘ …an immense labyrinth above the calm waters of the moeris, near crocodilopolis. i’ve seen it and it is above my abilities to make an exact account of it. (…) it has twelve covered courts, six on each side, north and south, with opposed gates (…). inside the building there are fifteen hundred rooms above earth and the same underground [that contain the tombs of those royal who built the labyrinth and of sacred crocodiles]. the top rooms are difficult to believe were the work of men. (…) room after room, gallery after gallery, courtyard after courtyard of intricate labour. the ceilings are made of stone like the walls covered with carved drawings and figures exquisitely built of marble and supported by columns. (…) near the end of the labyrinth there is a pyramid of two hundred and forty feet height with beautiful carvings of animals (…), surrounded by the [artificial] lake.’ 

[630]:

            great daedalus of athens was the man

   that made the draught, and form’d the wondrous plan;

   where rooms within themselves encircled lye,

   whit various windings, to deceived the eye.

   as soft maender’s wanton current plays,

   when thro’ the phrygian fields it loosely strays;

   backward and forward souls the dimpl’d tide,

   seeming, at once, two different ways to glide:

   while circling streams their former banks survey,

   and waters past succeeding waters see:

   now floating to the see with downward course,

   now pointing upward to its ancient source,

   such was the work, so intricate the place,

   that scarce the workman all its turn cou’d trace;

   and daedalus was puzzled how to find

   the secret ways of what himself design’d.

            these private walls the minotaur include,

   who twice was glutted with athenian blood:

   but the third more successful prov’d,

   slew the monster, and the plague remov’d.

The  Autobiographies  Of  Pasiphae  & Semiramis  

& The  Book  Of  Games

there are games of hindsight, unavoidable foresight, death, tedium, ressurection, mirrors, music, hide and seek, love, knowledge & studies, peace, wars, maritime, aereal, famine, sexual fantasy & cruelty, cosmography, the kabballa & other annoying religious practices, anti-statesmancraftship, the born stars, self-destruction, the past future, phenomenology, attribution & retribution, silence & semantics, evolution, and excavation, pornography, still motion, overt lies, abuse, hypoctratics with volumes that we prize above our real existence ~ games of all sorts and which against such magic we are but little ants on a music sheet.

Thirty-Six   Plays:  

  welcome to an-men'sgozyasi~

                                                 ~ the recording

  >  >

 gozyasi

is written, performed and produced by an-men ~

& was recorded @ the naked lunch studios, putney, west london, april to july 2010 by david h. hillman ~

the sleeve was design by wassily blossfeldt based on the art & photography by steven lee rees ~

~ an-men is great, in fact it has to be among my favourite ever discoveries at soundcloud period. It's the kind of music you don't get to hear very often because some people still seem to be focused on 'big productions' and 'musical content' to an extent that only reveals their personal insecurities about music. An-men strikes me as very simple yet very powerful and equally elegant at the very same time  ~  phirnis

               ~ tracks ~

                            ~ leeleein blume     ~ (08:50) astounding patterns and depths in (an-men's) music, it does need repeated

                                                                                                 listening. a touch of the master musicians (of jojouka) in there as well?

                                                                                                 {c.cu, belfast, 7 august 2010} ~

                            ~ artehamo            ~  (08:04) peaceful yet genuinely spooky... it's great! (phirnis, germany, 30 july 2010} ~

                            ~ anais                  ~  (09:06) this is beautiful, it's the kind of music you have to pay close attention to in

                                                                                               order to really enjoy it. it's so quiet, yet underneath it's very 

                                                                                               powerful. {phirnis, germany, 30 july 2010} ~    

                            ~ lalla bai                ~  (05:50)

                            ~ ammehlia             ~  (13:09)

                            ~ bolorgir linga         ~  (06:50)

                            ~ maria                   ~  (08:12)

                            ~ gozyasi                ~  (07:22)

               ~ published by catalogue of wonders (arts) llp ~

  ~   snow white in apallachia (an-men remix, 2009)

'Tis said, the pipe and lute that charm our ears

Derive their melody from rolling spheres;

But Faith, o'erpassing speculation's bound,

Can see what sweetens every jangled sound.

We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him

The song of angels and of seraphim.

Out memory, though dull and sad, retains

Some echo still of those unearthly strains.

Oh, music is the meat of all who love,

Music uplifts the soul to realms above.

The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:

We listen and are fed with joy and peace.

There is a Water that flows down from Heaven

To cleanse the world of sin by grace Divine.

At last, its whole stock spent, its virtue gone.

Dark with pollution not its own, it speeds

Back to the Fountain of all purities;

Whence, freshly bathed, earthward it sweeps again,

Trailing a robe of glory bright and pure.

This Water is the Spirit of the Saints,

Which ever sheds, until itself is beggared,

God's balm on the sick soul; and then returns

To Him who made the purest light of Heaven.

We are the flute, our music is all Thine;

We are the mountains echoing only Thee;

And movest to defeat or victory;

Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-

They wind invisible sweeps us through the world.

First he appeared in the realm inanimate;

Thence came into the world of plants and lived

The plant-life many a year, nor called to mind

What he had been; then took the onward way

To animal existence, and once more

Remembers naught of what life vegetive,

Save when he feels himself moved with desire

Towards it in the season of sweet flowers,

As babies that seek the breast and know not why.

Again the wise Creator whom thou knowest

Uplifted him from animality

To Man's estate; and so from realm to realm

Advancing, he became intelligent,

Cunning and keen of wit, as he is now.

No memory of his past abides with him,

And from his present soul he shall be changes.

Though he is fallen asleep,

God will not leave him In this forgetfulness.

Awakened, he Will laugh to think what troublous dreams he had.

And wonder how his happy state of being

He could forget, and not perceive that all

Those pains and sorrows were the effect of sleep

And guile and vain illusion.

So this world

Seems lasting, though 'tis but the sleepers' dream;

Who, when the appointed Day shall dawn, escapes

From dark imaginings that haunted him,

And turns with laughter on his phantom griefs

When he beholds his everlasting home.

I made a far journey Earth's fair cities to view,

but like to love's city City none I knew

At the first I knew not That city's worth,

And turned in my folly A wanderer on earth.

From so sweet a country I must needs pass,

And like to cattle Grazed on every grass.

As Moses' people I would prefer to eat Garlic, than manna

And celestial meat.

What voice in this world to my ear has come

Save the voice of love Was a tapped drum.

Yet for that drum-tap

From the world of

All Into this perishing Land I did fall.

That world a lone spirit Inhabiting.

Like a snake I crept

Without foot or wing.

The wine that was laughter

And grace to sip Like a rose I tasted

Without throat or lip.

'Spirit, go a journey,' Love's voice said:

'Lo, a home of travail I have made.'

Much, much I cried:

'I will not go'; Yea, and rent my raiment

And made great woe.

Even as now I shrink

To be gone from here,

Even so thence To part I did fear.

'Spirit, go thy way,'

Love called again,

'And I shall be ever nigh thee

As they neck's vein.'

Much did love enchant me

And made much guile;

Love's guile and enchantment

Capture me the while.

In ignorance and folly

When my wings I spread,

From palace unto prison I was swiftly sped.

Now I would tell How thither thou mayst come;

But ah, my pen is broke

And I am dumb. >>>

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