XXXV

Don February 21st, 2009

XXXV Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            It was not to be countenanced that my growing love affair with that Renaissance form the Sonnet should compromise my devotion to Alliterative Meter and all things medieval.  Now, Merlin is properly Celtic, not Saxon.  But why waste an opportunity to contribute to that delightfully irresistible web of anachronisms we call the Matter of Britain?  So let us think of this as Merlin emerging from Celtic twilight into the light of Anglo-Saxon Alliterative day:

 VISION 

The man who here sits    and moves not, nor speaks, 

But watches in wakeful,    wide-eyed silence,

A shadowy figure    may chance to meet,

That slowly, slowly,    slow approaches,

Taking form as it comes:

 

Falling hair,    like a flood of water,

On rocks of shoulders    splashes silver;

Eyes like coals    that ever smoulder

With eerie fire    flash from the shadows,

Glowing more bright as they come.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

Comments are closed.