Dreams descending from heaven

The Canigó is an immense magnolia
that blooms in an offshoot of the Pyrenees;
its bees are the fairies that surround it,
and its butterflies the swans and the eagles.
Its cup are jagged mountain chains,
colored in silver by the winter and in gold by the summer,
huge cup where the star drinks fragrances, the airs freshness and the clouds water.
The pine forests are its hedges and the ponds its dew drops,
and its pistil is that golden palace,
seen by the nymph in her dreams descending from heaven.

Canigou, Jacint Verdaguer

I embolden the Spearmen

God speaks and says:

I am the stag of seven tines.

Over the flooded world

I am borne by the wind.

I descend in tears like dew, I lie glittering,

I fly aloft like a griffon to my nest on the cliff,

I bloom among the loveliest flowers,

I am both the oak and the lightning that blasts it.

I embolden the spearman,

I teach the councillors their wisdom,

I inspire the poets,

I rove the hills like a ravening boar,

I roar like the winter sea,

I return again like the receding wave.

Who but I can unfold the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

Romance of Taliesin, Robert Graves

The Lordly Ones

How beautiful they are,

The lordly ones

Who dwell in the hills,

In the hollow hills.

They have faces like flowers

And their breath is wind

That blows over grass

Filled with dewy clover.

Their limbs are more white

Than shafts of moonshine:

They are more fleet

Than the March wind.

They laugh and are glad

And are terrible:

When their lances shake

Every green reed quivers.

How beautiful they are

How beautiful

They lordly ones

In the hollow hills.

Etain, The Immortal Hour, Fiona Macleod (William Sharp)

Heaven’s Portal

‘Then the son of old Poseidon –

He who roused Apollo’s hatred –
Shouts: “Assassin! Jealous brother,
Long it is for this you’ve waited.

‘”Sun-God, you designed my downfall
Cruelly, so the breath of sorrow
Falls anew on Winter evenings,
Feeds the dew each misty morrow.

‘“As the nymphs sang paeans, God,
You chose to then divulge my ‘fortune’,
Chose to fool your trusting sister,
Felled the seed of mighty Neptune.

‘”Jealous God, you made her shoot me
while I braved the deep, the blue sea,
Just because my foot was fleeter
And my love, God, that much sweeter!

‘”All shall know the truth of this:
The virgin loves, my Lord, my kiss,
The virgin loves, my Lord, my touch;
My Lord – she loves it – oh so much!”

‘“All on Earth shall know the real truth,
She has made me quite immortal.
Greatly shall this come to haunt you
Now I stand at Heaven’s portal.”

‘As he bathes in sun, Apollo,
Concentrates Orion’s sorrow,
Hail’s the starry-minded brothers,
Castor, Pollux, twins of Leda.

‘“Fare thee well, oh son of Zeus,
And how’s the child of Tyndareus?
Do me if you will, a favour,
Keep an eye on this old raver.

‘“Hale Orion scorns the heavens,
Struggles ‘gainst his fixed position.
Give the grave one bitter medicine,
‘Til he stands in soul submission.”

The Grail

From the grail, begotten vessel –

Duly called the cup of life –

Outwards grew a blossom. Special

Was the bloom, a trine of light.

It was more: In centrifugal

Ways it grew, spiraling into

Realms of matter, jewelled, extending,

Source of incense never ending.

Sweet ambrosia filled the ether

In tumultuous swathes, divine.

All around the glittering Seraphs

Showed the selves the leaves of time.

Turned were ages into twinkling

Swaying, starry-studded trees,

While the watching, held in thrall,

Turned their gaze, beheld, believed.

Summoned from the rest by angels,

Once named souls were then uprisen.

Those perceived the open door and

Streamed in dew-lit robes to Heaven.

Silver like beads of Dew

In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale blue eyes of forget-me-nots.

About her feet in wide vessels of green and brown earthenware, white water-lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool.

‘Enter good guests!’ she said, and as she spoke they knew it was her clear voice they had heard singing. They came a few timid steps further into the room, and began to bow low, feeling strangely surprised and awkward, like folk that, knocking at a cottage door to beg for a drink of water, have been answered by a fair young elf queen clad in living flowers.

But before they could say anything, she sprang lightly up and over the lily-bowls, and ran laughing towards them; and as she ran her gown rustled softly like the wind in the flowering borders of a river.

The Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien

The Golden Key

He gave my self a golden key

Upon it fixed were rubies three.

I raised it to my lips to kiss

Then thanked the One and swallowed it.

The key was safely in my centre;

Through the doorway I did enter,

Past the guardian of the threshold;

Quetzalcoatl’s face was threefold.

Later in the night I wakened –

Half an owl and half a wizard –

Stood before my sleeping station.

Dawn brought hope; a sweet sensation.

Free at last, we dared to open

Wide the way to dew-lit flowers,

Where we walked as soul survivors

Through the sun-kissed April showers.