Idle Age, Op. 35

Once I on more idle age,
Let flow both wines of saint and sage,
And having none to compel, my flickering fire
Did tint an Angelic host with desire,
And pass day, its increase,
Did their spotless innocence cease.
There were the bountiful horns that did offer,
The overflowing contents of an Empire's coffer;
And there were the heirs of an apple-tree,
Which lowly did lay within the reach of me;
Yet as my grasp to them my fingers led,
The apples told, they'd made me a death-bed!

What followed was as decreed by a draconian law,
As with wild and frightened grip and claw,
I all the scarlet gardens did adjourn,
And having adjourned, set them to burn,
So that what to pleasure before I'd lost,
Was now but a shade what its retainment cost.
The smoke which silently from the wreck did rise,
I think, with tearful brand did scratch my eyes,
Till again the angels of innocence fled,
And with them the haze, and cleared this head;
The burning Eden was not fit for a sage,
And I yearned - yearned for an idler age.

Extempore

Oh Poet! sing me your sweetest song,
The world soon prove your singing wrong;
Oh Lover! sing me of your love's lore,
That love will demand you no more;
Fair Bumblebee! sing me of yon fair meadow,
Well I see, you of that mead nothing know;
Oh Lad! sing me of what you'd grow to be,
No matter, what are you to him or me;
Oh Lass! sing me of your youth and fun,
Your song will end when your work is done;
Oh Poet! sing me your sweetest song,
You do your duty with your golden tongue!

Cain at Euphrates, Op. 34

"It is I! Cain, the riddle-breaker,
The truthful idealist, the wave-waker,
The dreamer of dreams,
The schemer of schemes,
The Hero, who from the well of treasons,
Has drained the dregs of reasons;
I've tasted it all,
Done it all;
Drank it all!"

So issues Cain from the banks of Euphrates,
Where with fear and terror driven he falls,
Thinking that above the star-lit caverns and halls,
Stand still with vigilant ear,
Swaying closer for his boasts to hear,
And as he more leans to the river's brink,
He more dreams, laughing at his magnificient lies,
While his hands shatter the surface before his eyes,
And his lips embrace the rippling waves.
For tendays since that fateful turn,
The mark of slayer has in him burnt,
The blood that flowed in him has yet to stop;
In his mind the blade makes a screeching float,
And with pleasant ambient evokes his laughter,
Emerging from his thoughts of jubilant slaughter;
Till, early today he sees the river, where fearlessly,
The stains of blood he finally washes away,
And in idle fantasies he now spends his day;
Marvelling where the water reflects his face,
Onto which now is etched a handsome mark.

This here then, the kingdom of sinners,
Where both deliberate and foolishly branded will
Wander, and their own mark on the domains instill,
And build a prouder nation, which with diamond towers,
Will reach the realms of heaven in their cloudy bowers.
The river that fleetly flows here we'll redirect,
Its course through arid lands with manlier hand,
Will carve through rock and desert my joyful band,
And make irrigation over mead, farm over pasture,
Civilization over ruin, and ruin onto pastoral,
Make dreams come visions, and visions onto true,
So that blissful gardens will be anew,
And that blood that flowed ever will taste like wine,
And the blood flows from a knife, and the knife is mine.
So indolently dreams Cain, and his feats of tommorrow,
Like from his present they borrow,
As soon like a wild beast or a predator of dark,
He'll pounce on every pheasant or squalid lark.

The fate of villain is no lonely one,
As more villains than heroes here below the sun,
And neither will I be without a pair,
For ever the feminine form has sought for,
The villain and the knave, these they do adore;
And my queen shall be the fairest of all,
My Helen's beauty shall eclipse the stars,
And gather my corps from near and afar.
So issues Cain, from his golden throne lying,
From his kraks and citadels in Babylon's hills,
From his dark and towering satanic mills;
And in his mind the paladins of old are his,
Their hearts of gold are his hearts of cold;
The legions under his command untold,
His courts are filled with sagacious pedigree,
Philosophers crowd his door, the love of a woman,
Is his to ask for, his harem a mountain does span.
Yet not all can be, not all dreams be real,
His magnificient court is filled with rot,
The only philosophers those that here are not.

There are certain old men... Op. 33

There are certain old men,
Who, when half-pressed lingers their day,
Do in winter bloom, all grizzled and gray.
And such wraiths they are! In the last years,
There's attained the bounties of sombrer age,
And the youthful vigour, diadem of king and sage,
There's gained anew, like from embers a fitful fire,
Or from chaste life, that in pleasure excess,
And having none to lose, the heavens glee and bless.
While many a youth I've seen in frenzied pace,
Dream-drunk their ambition's circuit a-race,
Few did possess a strength so haunting,
Than those few who with dissatisfied stance
Banish the wrinkled brow with austere countenance,
And who with a grip of unshaking hand
Clutch tight the scepter of their waning might,
And gaze forth from the shade of their waxing night.
Such men are the rigour of a state, yet still,
Many have bewailed the deeds, and many yet will,
To whom there is no progeny and no heirs do suffice.
The door of death behind them casts a breath of ice,
And what they feel in their backs, others in their grip,
For age makes blunt even remorse's wailing whip.