Sir John De Vere Poem by David Lewis Paget

Sir John de Vere has took a quill
And set himself to sit and write
The sweetest love that is of men
To take unto his heart's delight.

And he has took a damsel fair
That flitteth by, beseemingly,
And with a strand of golden hair
Begun to weave her mystery.

The hair it flows from quill to sheet
In whorls and ripples it doth flow,
In twists and bends it eddies forth
To settle on the sheet below.

The hair is sweet in light perfume,
The quill it flows from page to page,
The lady's love has settled there
For all to read and all to know.

The lady's hair has bound her love
With golden tresses to the line,
Her heart is caught, it knows not where,
But may not move, and may not go.

Her skin, that of the lightest hue
Is soft to touch and soft to dare,
Sir John de Vere reveals anew
The secrets of her every where.

The more the pen skims on the page
The tighter are the bonds that bind,
The lady swoons in righteous rage
At whorls and eddies in her mind.

In whorls and eddies it doth flow
The golden hair, a flowing stream,
The cheek is caught and now the thigh,
Imprisoned for the world to know.

'You've made my love a whore', said she
'For all to come and take their sup,
My mind is open, disarrayed,
And so my thighs, my kirtle's up'.

Sir John heard not his lover's plea
But worked from day to night his joy
And took another golden strand
To work his quill another ploy.

And so his muse grew forth apace
His verse became a mighty work
And when his quill had run him dry
He went to seek his lover's face.

He sought and searched him far about
But never no sight of her did see,
Then mused apace before he turned
To seek the pages of his creed.

Among the parchment of his room
He found his love within the scrip',
And all the art and all the grace
He'd taken from his lover's lip.

And all the life and all the joy
Imprisoned on the churley sheet
To leave the shadow of his love
Bereft, and for the world to meet.

Sir John de Vere took on the thread
And pulled it from the final line,
That words that tumbled from his head
Should never not, nor now to bind.

And as the muse its thread was broke
A sigh came from his shadow love,
And colour caught in both the cheeks
And life came back in all the blood.

The arms he loosed then gripped him fast
And lips that whispered him to hear,
He will not write his love at last
Nor never again, will John de Vere.

25 April 1978