Something I wrote quite a while ago and I enjoyed re-reading it.  Hope you do too

A Response to Coleridge's ”Dejection: An Ode"

by Joanne Nakaya

Well! If that poet who penned

the tale of Sir Patrick Spence

was wise to the ways of the wind

then tonight, so quiet too, will not pass unmolested

by winds more demanding,

than those breezes that stuff clouds with lazy flakes

or that dull sobbing wind, that moaning, scrapes

hungry claws

upon the strings of this Aeolian lute

it would be far better if this lute was unable to speak.

For see, the new moon lights the winter sky

And covered with a soft light

A hazy light spreads over her face

Silver Rimmed and encircled.

I see the old Moon in her lap, predicting

Rain and fierce storms

And oh, I wish even now the gusts were swelling

With rain slanting down loud and fast.

That music of the rain that has often lifted me with awe

And sent my soul flying with the wind

Tonight, maybe those sounds again may stir in me

That habit of wonder and excitement, and

Might interrupt this mute pain and make it move and live.

My life

A constant grief

without a piercing pain, empty, dark and dreary

A restrained, tiresome, un-passionate grief

A grief without surcease

Oh harp, in this melancholy heartless mood

Even nature has failed to entice me

All this long night, calm and gentle

I have been staring to the sunset

And its strange flavoring of yellow green

And still I stare unseeing!

Through the thin clouds above, bars that imprison the sky

The stars revel in their dance

As they glide behind and now between them

Then bright, now dimmed but still apparent.

That crescent Moon, as unmovable as if it were alienated

In the sky

Belonging instead to some pure, untainted clime

I can see them all, so beautiful

I see, but cannot feel, how beautiful they are.

My cheerful spirits fail me again

They can they do nothing

To lift the smothering weight from my heart

It would be useless

Even if eternity locked her gaze

On nature as she lingers in the west

I know I cannot obtain from her

The passion and life that dwell within me.

Oh harp, can we only receive what we give?

Nature lives only as a distant memory

She has woven her wedding dress for our joy

her winding sheet twists our limbs

And if we could ever envision a higher purpose

Than this artificial world provides

To the anxiously searching futility of life

Oh not from nature but from eternity that

Sleeps within the soul itself that life must come

That light, that glory, like an eternal cloud

It covers the earth

No, from within alone must that voice be heart

A sweet prophetic voice, of the soul’s own birth

Of all sweet sounds of life and nature

Pure of heart, you don’t need to ask me

The name of this rough music in the soul

What and where it emerged,

This light, this misty circlet of light

This beautiful power that makes beauty glow

It is Joy dear harp, joy that belongs only

to pure, in their purest hour

Life and life’s spirit shower joy

Joy, Joy, that spirit and power

Which nature, at her wedding, gave to us, as a dowery

A new earth and new heaven

Unobtainable by the sinful and proud is joy,

Joy the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud

She Envelopes us., and we rejoice ourselves

And so flows everything that charms my eye or my ear

All song the echoes of that voice of joy

And all colors created from that joy

There was a time when though my way was hard

This joy within me only toyed with distress

And misfortune was

a dream in the midst of my happiness

(where fancy created dreams of happiness just for me)

For hope wound in and around me like a vine

And I adopted hope, that not my own, seemed to be mine anyway

But now afflictions drive me to the ground

I don’t care that they rob me of laughter

But oh each instance

Suspends that gift from nature

The Imagination that shapes my spirit

Leaving me one sole possibility

And so unfeeling still, and patient

I contrived to steal

From my very own nature

My only resource, my only plan

Until finally that small loss encompassed me

Becoming the killing habit of my soul

The future of deadly thoughts work within my mind

I live in Reality’s dark dream

I turn from this and listen to the changing wind,

A spirit she

raving unnoticed extracts my scream

Of agony made longer by torture

That lute sent forth! You, wind that fumes outside

Wild and barren nature

You hover near groves unknown to man

barren houses,

I think were better suited to you

Mad lutanist, who in this month of spring showers

Of ungrown gardens and hesitant flowers

Make a devil’s pact with Christmas worse than desolate song.

Blossoms, buds and shy leaves hide you,

You tragic actor

You mighty poet, frenzied and bold

What are you now?

Like the rushing of an deserting army

howling as they trample the wounded

groaning with pain and shuddering with cold

But wait, in a pause of deep silence

the noise of the madding crowd

groaning and shuddering, is finished

Now it will relay another quieter story

A less frightening tale

With some delight I recall it

As if Otway himself had written it

of a little child

a wild place

near home she has lost her way

And quietly wails in grief and fear

And then shrieks piteously hoping her mother hears

It’s midnight my hope of sleep fades

I hope you never share this, my vigil

Visit her, gentle sleep, with healing calm

may her storm be a mountain-birth

all the stars shine bright

Silently as they watch the sleeping earth

rise with happiness

Bright with fancy and cheer

Joy, lift her spirit, make her voice reflect her joy

May all things be alive to her, pole to pole

May nature’s life feed her living soul

Oh simple spirit guided from above

Dear harp, devout friend,

May you rejoice forever.