53

December
Christopher Cassetty

Splendour oft’ is rare upon the Winter morn—
 where hangs on low our Eve’s deceitful fruit,
and tears away the pall o’ gloaming skies the moonly breast
o’ ensorcelled Selene, and thus am I remember’d
well the dreary night so long ago; July warmth
burn’d the midnight air, and wherefore blazed the Moon
 to mock the dousèd Sun by sea repressèd,
doth she wither embers unto Nyx’s bleak December. 

Whispers ‘pon the parchment-glass the quill to horror:
 the soft and gelid touch o’ Winter’s sooth;
or e’er the comet-dust fell, Hypnos’ nepenthe bless’d,
beseem’d the starless morn the night I well remember.
For were it without Selene’s Endymion torture,
‘pon her Zeus’s blessing to have undying youth,
 would sleep be not the unfortunate egress
from the moonlit nights o’ Nyx’s bleak December.

Philtres form’d from whisper’d words and winter’s lore
 are too the mind’s sweet lullabies of  youth;
beware this tincture, brewed o’ weeping skies’ depression,
melts the icy carapace with fierce inferno embers.
‘Fore, her ash, the lachryma-dust of  flames, scorching
Earth from the gelid burns o’ melancholy gaze o’ Moon,
 was once the steam o’ River Lethe’s breath,
borne to Earth to warm our Nyx’s bleak December.

Tender is the Sun in waking from his torpor
 when he descries the fiery lands bedewed,
and wherefrom wept the winter skies, the morning crest o’
Moon, and ‘pon this sight, Selene doth scream in ghastly tremor.
For were it without Selene’s Endymion torture,
‘pon her Zeus’s blessing to have undying youth,
 would I need not the morning sultry death o’
Moon, to sleep at ease in Nyx’s bleak December.