The Muse and I

---

The Muse and I

Poem

Simon Vouet: Parnassus or Apollo and the Muses

‘‘Twas but a few moons ago we dallied,
Sweet muse, fickle goddess,
By tree shade sheltered from jealous eyes.
And I gazed into thy orbs, radiant with words,
Basking in thy favours, and suffered the eclipse 
Of thy eyelids denying thy orb’s flame,
A fleeting moment but an age to me.
On the nest of thy bosom I laid,
And thou whispered with thy lips meeting
My parched being with rhythms profuse,
Thy free liberty’s jaunt upon my prone heart.
And now, thou deniest a single kiss?
O but coy was thy glance, fervent thy heart,
Thy bosom heaved yes and thy sighs agreed!
But now, I see not thy face nor hear thy voice,
Fertile seems the desert and exile better
Than this home absent of thee.
Banal is music that filters not through thy tresses,
And food stale that is unmet by thy lips.
What villainy has poisoned thy bosom,
What squint-eyed will preyed upon thy innocence,
Was it that Yaksha, sophist of banal arguments?
Or some jealous god in an unworshipped heaven?
Did the Nightingale sing ill of me?
Oh, I but thought its call was sour,
By thy sweet voice that sates not.
Was it the wild jasmine I spurned,
The one of gaudy perfume?
Thou speakest not, and mine waves meet
The crash of rocky shores with daggers
Unsheathed, with malice for love briefly savoured.
Cruel, much too cruel, is the Sun,
And moon taunts appearing as thy face,
Fair was the world and now thou art gone,
My speech turns rabble as an ill-mannered lout.
Return goddess, to thy shrine my heart,
Pristine it remains, watered and flowered,
My lips and tongue to thee betrothed,
My mind taken its vows by the fire,
Make my being thy home, thy empire.”
And she answered, the muse,
“I come by a will greater,
I adore because the One commands,
Him beseech, am but His.
What thou adorest is Him,
And the ages have granted thee
Thy use of me in my free ease.
Cherish lover, for He loves thee,
So I submit myself to thee.”
In divine content said I,
“By thee I worship Him inscrutable,
The Sun my feeble eyes canst hardly bear.
Prepare me muse by thy graces,
May thy love propel me to Him.”