Let Me Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Let me
Be another Prometheus who slept
Dreamt the sweet dreams of the gods
As he desired
As he had willed
He fell then asleep from hidden
Morpheus
And over his brain and closed eyes
Made her palm Mnemosyne:
Let me
Let me
Let me another Prometheus be
Who swept in the sweet lap of the gods
And in the dream there came
The messengers of the Gods and they
Tied him
Softly
Softly
With chains of roses sweet that with
Minutes transformed
Into iron-clad chains of measures grim.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.




II

Across the sacred mountain that
There was
Planted by the hands of Jove himself
In a secret desolate spot of Earth
Where human institutions feared
Ascent
Here in sleep
The gods by divine hands and aerial
Flight
Transported hummock-like
Sleeping Prometheus
Asleep still
Still in his desires burning
Still.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.




III



In the cold blizzards of gales
With snow particles combined
Prometheus the hot asleep
Outside the cold raw and savage
Sings
Inside the warmth, the passion,
The desires,
The tearing to and fro,
Mixing of human and divine
Sacred ire.






Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





IV



Ahi!
Ahi! Our emotions are the emotions
Of the divine too
And the divine to human emotions
Transform as easily:
The twilight beauty of the stunned
seas
And gargling waters of red dusk
As easy string
Into the emotions of Minerva as
She white-toga reclining over
The bastions sings
Overlooking the scented seas and
Magic winds.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.







V

A man in chains and yet in dreams
He free
Wanders through out the gardens
That Beauty set
For him
Wanders amazed with eyes as
Innocent
As child's returning swift
Unto the ancestral halls where
First his brain begins.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





VI

A man whose looks into the magic
Dream
Imperial over the swards below
Look
A man whose brains in their
Conscious knowledge
Of all around
Feed and transform into
Sub-conscious to the ground
Where million angels in blue
Habits
Donned
Sing in clusters of white choirs
All around.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





VII

Beauty wreaks so
Beauty works so
I hear the scent
As sweetest music notes
In some Venetian street
Benighted full:
Where sings a violin
I smell the sounds
The notes of turbulent passion
Borne
Distilled into a sperm-jar in
The clouds
That round about enclose
Their arms
And turn and freeze.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





VIII

Not few, yet not so many
The chosen messengers
That Beauty chooses for her
Tasks:
That Beauty for her missions
Sends:
Not as stars that so numerous
Line
In the nocturnal lights of dark
Their visage white






Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.




IX

Youth's beauty in the ages of
The old
As clouds of fire long
Remained
Amidst the clouds of snow
And raging gales:
And chill
And frost
By slow degrees it turned to
Tempest tossed.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





X

So let
So let Prometheus sleep
See! The gods to lower Earth
From the supernal spheres
They carry him aback
Dawn is fast already on her wings
And within hours few
Returns to sing.





Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.





XI

So
Woke Prometheus.
No chains but just the dream
That by his side smiled
Erect stood
A statue of Beauty
The new Dawn.






Strawberry mornings, deep in to
The glades where mists are
Warring; raspberry chants of
Birds just dawn-awaken;
Nymphs with scant of dress
Yet beauty in increasing:
Scents that arise from jars of
Cassia and of night jaws still
Fresh in the dawning.
Glades whose brains are high
Over the snow-topped mountains
Vales where rapid streamlets
Glancing.
And in the early morn small figures
Shadowy and grey all dancing.
Sing! Sing! Loosen your tongue
Poet Seer the wine is here
Sip and be not parched: ‘tis morning.