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by Anthony "Wordsworth" Fraser.
I love the redolent voice of this tropic land,
lulled winds dreaming of siren’s lies;
Summer’s luxuriant heat gently fanned
by wayward palms betwixt water and starry skies:
My limbs, embraced in blood warm sand, bask
for time in a broken hour-glass has no measure;
Half hidden, part visible, striped moon shadows mask
a careless abandonment to sensual pleasure.
My life is sundered from me as I sleep
and quickly marched away in clanking chains;
To come at last before Morpheus deep keep
there dreaming wild dreams of even deeper flames:
My soul a fettered prisoner writhes
within dank cell, behind fastened door;
Washed up by the tempest’s laudanum tides;
flotsam upon a melancholy shore.
Below me now the strident waves do sigh
at ceaseless partings from the earth;
Feelings my restless spirit wilt not deny,
a journey undertaken but no rebirth:
Over sheep-cropped downs and spinneys wild,
cloud patterned wheat that mourns the hidden sun;
Arcadian simplicity and towns red tiled
to dreaming spires as day is nearly done.
Collegiate bells accompany the glorious dawn,
kissing my ear with sonorous peals;
With ill-graced obeisance all bonds are withdrawn—
the apothecary of sleep, away he steals:
I proclaimed my freedom, a joy I could not hide,
but black-robed, there spoke an erudite sage;
Even beauteous morns permit basest clouds to ride;
you have exchanged your shackles for a gilded cage!