I
First Mask
O sorrow mothered by the
Seven hills, which god claims
My love as his sword?
To my heart i relunquished,
Putting all my violet faith
In her arms of Juno.
Foolishly, perhaps, I made myself
Into an image of her dreams.
But she fount it impossible
To love a silver reflection.
I was steered wrong
And now the horizon claims her.
Would you not, O merciful Apollo,
Keep her from leaving the city walls,
So I can lead her to Pericles' gate
And pour unto her, my burning love.
The walls made for violence
Will be the armoured messengers of passion.
This love is so sacred it is a labyrinth.
If love is the fruit of the gods
And it burns so wildly within me,
Does that make me a god?
Is that love's purpose,
To fulfill our promise of divinity?
I have never learned the name
Of the god who decides
Whom we are to love.
What patron will build a temple
For this unknown deity?
Who knows his prayers?
Men go to war with eyes
Wide open, proudly dying
Shouting the great name of Mars.
Men in love know not
Who they die for, and yet
Theirs is the only great death.
I understand now, the tears
Of the hero of the vanquished:
The only thing worse than the labyrinth
Is the minotaur awaiting those who solve it.
O horned one, your ivory
Is Apollo's embrace!
II
Second Mask
My heart drinks from the cup of rusted wine
That has bled gold since the first Prophet's time.
She is the verdant star and I, her moon
But which cherub dares giver her a message so divine?
Throughout vast desert lands I have seen men quiver
And in the burning sun they yearn for their lover's sunshine.
I join now their sombre procession of wilted palms
Just to seek the sacred verse that would make her mine.
Vast are the boundaries of God's empire
But the heart's standard is so easily repeled by an unrquited rhyme.
Praise be to the men who erect Eastern windows
But where are the men who erect love's scriptured sign?
What veiled rider has made me believe that she is the one
That has bled gold since the first Prophet's time?
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