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The Andante Quartet

Book Two

This Rough Magic

Michael Shea

Copyrighted in 2016 by the sole author, Michael J. D. Shea

©
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Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make the midnight mushrumps, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azure vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and when I have required
Some heavenly music (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.
Prospero, The Tempest
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The lines in italics were written by William Butler Yeats:

page 4 – The Stolen Child
page 22 – The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
page 39 – The Sorrow Of Love
page 66 – When You Are Old
page 77 – He Bids His Love Be At Peace
page 112 – He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
page 126 – The Fiddler Of Dooney
page 153 – The Wild Swans At Coole
page 171 – The Second Coming
page 203 – Sailing To Byzantium
page 230 – A Song From A Play
page 264 – Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers
page 277 – A Prayer For Old Age

page 301 – The Coda:

Written by William Shakespeare
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The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we’ve hid our fairy vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
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Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bath a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Away with us he’s going,

The solemn eyed:

He’ll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a fairy, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

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‘Where dips the rocky headland’, Dawes,

Whom Santa changed from is to was,

Is playing marbles: He’s a kid.

It’s true that Santa Claus got rid

Of Dawes. Claus terminated Dawes.

He offed that kid. And yet the laws

Of Yahweh have decreed that we

Should try to see eternity

In instants. And to see, in Dawes,

A kid who should be put on pause,

But not deleted. Little kids

Were crying: Dawes had opened lids

Of cauldrons to release the steam

Dissolving children’s Christmas dream.

The jolly saint was most displeased

Because J. Dawes said ‘frozen’ “freezed”

When he declared, “There ain’t no land

Where Santa and his grouchy band

Of elves are toiling, every day,

To write on lumps of coal that say,

‘You rotten kid, this coal you’ve earned

Reminds Big Claus of sulphur burned

In Hell, to form the flickering flames.

They light the halls where Hellish games

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Are played by kids, like Jabes Dawes,

Who scoffed at God and Santa Claus.’”

The Easter Bunny, thus enraged

By lies that Dawes had told, engaged

The heavies from King Henry Fifth

To call on Dawes. And give the gift

Of nothingness to Jabes, who

Had said to little kids, “It’s true!

There ain’t no Easter Bunny. And

There ain’t no Easter Bunny Land

Where rabbits paint the Easter eggs.”

The Easter Bunny said, “Dawes begs

Forgiveness? Haw! That blighter told

Those kiddies that the blue and gold

On Easter eggs are painted by

The imps and implettes, where they fry

The sinners: Tories damned to Hell,

Where sulphur stinks and noses smell.

And roses smell like paradise: This world

That space has spawned and time has twirled

Will be an Eden when the vice

Called Dawes is put on endless ice.

That rotter claims I don’t exist.

So heavies, make that kid desist

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By sending Dawes to fiendish maws

For mocking me: My rabbit’s paws

Are itching for the end of Dawes

Who scoffs at me and God and Claus.”

King Henry gladly took the cash

The Bunny offered Hank. “Make hash

Of Jabes Dawes!” Then Henry’s thugs,

Those loony goons and pugs and mugs,

Went looking for that kid to kill.

And Jabes Dawes was cooking swill

To feed the hogs who root-out roots

Of trees of truth. And making suits

Of lead to anchor bunnies thrown

Where gators dine on blood and bone

Of rabbits in the river ‘cause

They’d claimed that, “God and Santa Claus

And Easter’s bunny all exist.”

And Jabes Dawes said, “That’s the mist

Of lies concealing verities:

Big Claus puts nothing under trees

At Christmas. And a balmy breeze,

A sniffle, snort, or sneeze or wheeze,

Are far more real than the God

The seraphs and archangels laud.

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And as for Santa Claus: He ain’t!

The pictures that believers paint

Are fantasies. And I’m the brat

Who knows where truth is living at.”

When Henry’s heavies sought to find

That kid who peeled off the rind

Of fruit from trees of truth -- then threw

The seeds into the pastures new

Where weeds enveloped, choked a truth

Once nurtured by the hands of Ruth --

They turned up every stone in town,

Believing Dawes was hiding down

Among the bugs that crawled among

Those lies that Jabes Dawes had flung:

Mendacities that Dawes had flinged

Where seraphs, larks and robins singed

About the Bunny, Santa Claus,

And Yahweh, author of the laws

That Jabes spurned. No stone unturned,

No tern unstoned, no woods unferned,

No truths untold, no goods unsold,

Were overlooked by thugs who told

Each other that, “We seek him here.

We seek that blighter everywhere.

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And yet, can’t find that kid who said,

‘Claus never lived. And so, ain’t dead.

But God is dead. The Bunny too.’

And other lies: A bubbling stew

Some people swallow. Others state

The Bunny’s good, and God is great.

And Santa Claus brings presents to

The kids who weed the pastures new

Where mauvaises herbes, those wicked weeds,

Were throttling truths Jehovah seeds.

So where is Dawes? Where is the brat

Who belled the mouse and kicked the cat?

And claimed the Easter Bunny’s fled,

With Yahweh, to the land the dead

Inhabit.” Henry’s heavies searched

Where birds-of-paradise were perched

In trees of knowledge: Birds that squawked

They didn’t know. And then they flocked

To donuts made by Torton; him

Who hid the truth beneath a brim:

Concealing truth beneath a lid.

And hiding, too, that horrid kid.

For Dawes had found a coffee cup

So large it swallowed Jabes up:

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Instead of drinking coffee, he

Was swimming in his cup of tea.

For anything that hid the kid

From heavies wanting Terra rid

Of Dawes was fine with Tim and him.

But next, the news was grisly-grim.

For then a mammoth pair of paws

Undid the lid. “Here’s Jabes Dawes!”

The Easter Bunny snarled. And sneered

To see the kid so scraunched and scared.

Dawes cringed within the coffee cup:

The chips were down. His jig was up.

“Hey thugs!” the Easter Bunny roared

To heavies from a play that scored

A goal each time the king of France

Heard Henry’s tune and had to dance.

Then Henry’s heavies stood around

The cringing kid those scoundrels found

Where Jabes Dawes was swimming in

A cup of coffee vast as sin.

“Hi guys,” said Jabes Dawes. “What’s up?”

“You are,” said Bunny. From the cup,

He pulled the kid then held him high

Against a grey and glaring sky.

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So how will Jabes Dawes escape

Where donut-dunking dunces gape?

And ask if anyone can see

The end of Dawes’ eternity

That now begins. Then Jabes Dawes

Invokes protection of the laws.

But Sergeant Nakamura, King,

And other cops can’t hear him sing

His cygnet song. He begs the Fates

To save him. Changing lives to lates,

The Fates are too preoccupied

To save his juvenile hide.

So Jabes prays to God. But (S)He,

So busy, from eternity,

Creating universes, can’t

Find time. Then Jabes tries to slant

The plumbline leading down to Hell,

Where mockers of the Bunny dwell.

Dawes hopes that he can gently slide,

Instead of plummeting inside

A torrid tunnel, to his fate

Where Tories sizzle on a grate.

But Satan will have none of it.

He knows that Dawes will snugly fit

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Inside the tunnel leading to

The fate of voters voting Blue.

And then a gasp from Torton, him

Who sees a jolly face gone grim.

The door has opened. Santa Claus

Is slapping down the Bunny’s paws.

“Paws off! Thugs scram! For I’m the one

Who gets to frolic: Fiendish fun

Disposing of this scurvy brat

Who jeered and sneered at Santa’s fat,

And pissed upon the reindeer moss,

And claimed that Missus Claus is boss –

Okay, she is. – and said that Claus

Consorts with sharks with gaping maws –

Okay, I do. – Those sharks will take

Your number, Dawes. And you will bake

Where woe can’t sleep and hope can’t wake:

In Hell, where imps and implettes make

The Tories wish that they were Green

Or Orange. Tories’ oaths, obscene

And horrid, horrify the Fiend.

He dines upon an orange, greened

In Ireland, where rain won’t let

It ripen. Tons of Tories, wet

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Beneath the acid rain, will cringe

As imps and implettes sear and singe

Their butts. And climate change will heat

Their brains, their balls, their feet, their meat.

Though, Jabes, you’re too young to vote,

This saint has taken careful note

That you’re the kind of boy who likes

To paint, bright blue, the kiddies’ bikes

And tricycles if they are green

Or orange. Recently I’ve been

To Hogtown and a street called Bay,

Consorting with the sharks who slay

Economies. They also kill

For anyone who fills their till.

I’ve paid those sharks with loonies bright

As limpid lakes in Luna’s night.

Next time you’re swimming, Jabes Dawes,

The cleaving teeth and gaping maws;

And furrow formed by fearsome fin;

Of Bay Street sharks, will do you in.

Not swimming in this coffee cup,

You Claus-denying human pup.

But swimming in the summer sea

Where Jabes Dawes is doomed to be

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Because you have no other choice.

“I have a choice!” The youngster’s voice

Reveals Jabes certainty

He won’t go near the beach or sea.

“You jolly, homicidal saint,

You don’t exist. And so you ain’t

The nemesis of Jabes Dawes.

No fin, nor tooth, nor bloody claws

Will kill this kid. I won’t go near

The sea and sharks, or anywhere

That I might die because your schemes

Bring neighing nightmares to my dreams.”

“Oh yes, you will,” says Santa Claus.

“You have to swim then sink, young Dawes.

You have no choice, because your in

Another book. My saintly grin

Exults because you’re doomed to swim

Among the sharks. And so your grim

And grisly fate is bound to be:

You’re not-to-be in summer’s sea.”

“Says who?” asks Jabes Dawes. “Not you:

There ain’t no Claus. In pastures new,

No reindeer lounge on reindeer moss

With Claus, their non-existent boss.”

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“But in another book,” says Claus,

“The sharks have murdered Jabes Dawes:

A quartet called Adagio

Contains a page where you must go

To Hell because you’re dead: You’re killed

By shark-attack the hack has willed.

Determinism, spawned by print,

Decides your fate. Though there’s a hint

Of sorrow that your scornful eyes

Will never grow to adult size,

The bears that populate the skies,

The Major and the Minor, prize

The God who made them. So they grin

To see that you, a boy of sin

Who says, ‘There ain’t no God!’ will go

To where the fires melt the snow

The Fiend imports to cool his ass

Emitting foul sulphuric gas.

So you will go to Hell, young lad,

Because you’ve been extremely bad.

And also, you will roast in Hell

Because of stories volumes tell:

They’re there. They can’t be changed. And so

It’s off to Hades you will go.

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Since everything that’s written by

The hack is true, then you will die

And go to where the stench and flames

Will bring an end to naughty games

You’ve played with language. Jabes Dawes,

Although the wrath of Santa Claus

Is instrumental in your fate,

The reason why the scarlet gate

Of Hell awaits your entrance is

You’ve spilled the pop and drunk the fizz:

You’ve got it wrong. And so that door

Will close upon the evermore

Where ravens peck at critics’ eyes

That search for blue in scarlet skies

Of Hell. So you will go, my boy,

To where the Devil’s greatest joy

Is reading lines, in Shakespeare’s plays,

About the wicked’s wicked ways.

It’s all determined by the lines

Of print in other books. The wines

Of days and roses, in those books,

Inebriate the Devil. Nooks

In Hell are populated by

The demons reading every lie

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The hack has scribbled. Deep in Hell,

The Fiend reads yarns these pages tell:

The yarns unravelled by the flames

That burn accounts of scorching games

When pages, harmed by Hades’ heat,

Become the food the fires eat.

You’re fated, Dawes, to swim in seas

Where sharks will turn your knobby knees

To splinters, flinders, flakes and flecks:

The Bay Street sharks. In case that wrecks

Your day, remember that your time

In Hell is temporary: Rhyme

And metre have determined you

Will be released. In pastures new,

You then will hear the bluebells chime

The music of this rhythmic rhyme.”

Now dream a dream, you little kid,

Of where the songs of seraphs bid

You fly with them through azure skies

Where nothing hurts. And no one cries

In sorrow or in suffering.

And seraph-song and seraph-wing

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Are soft as clouds: They never rain

On lands where grass is green as pain

Existing only in the thoughts

Of leprechauns. And lilting, lots

Of seraph-songs are praising God.

(S)He never lets the land of Nod

Replace the paradise of kids:

They do what loving kindness bids

Beneath a gentle Eden-sun

And azure sky where everyone

Respects the bodies and the souls

Of kids. They play with colts and foals

Among the horses shadowy

As shade beneath the apple tree.

Beneath its branches, apples fall

To hands of kids who gather all

The fruit of kindness and of love

As gentle as the mourning dove:

She never mourns, because no pain

Or sorrow fills the heart and brain

Of any kid. And horses, dark

And shadow-shaded, hear a lark

That sings the songs of happiness

The seraphim and zephyrs bless.

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Those gentle breezes from the west

Are seeking eastern Eden’s guest.

For Eve, in Eden wrote a book

About a limpid, laughing brook:

The stream of time, reflecting joys

That visit little girls and boys

In future years. When Terra turns

Beneath the skies where Yahweh burns

A scrap of screed. It had decreed

The greedy maw of time would feed

Upon the lives of kids who know

The price of life is pain and woe.

So now that scrap of foolscap’s burned.

And Terra, whirling, now has turned

From Nod to paradise. And kids

Are happy as the lark that bids

The sun to rise above an Earth

Where time and space and dawn give birth

To mornings new as Eden when

The bluebells tolled. And Eden’s wren

Accompanied the floral bells

Melodious as yarns God tells.

They chimed their carillon about

A world where suffering is out,

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And fun and happiness are in.

And every little kid will win

The prize of life: So prized because,

Although their world has minor flaws,

No kid is ever hit, or told

That she or he deserves the cold

Of hatred. Nor an anger hot

As heat the sun of summer’s wrought.

And Yahweh’s wrought a filigree,

In gold, as comely as the tree

Of life. And lapis lazuli,

As azure as eternity,

Adorns that golden tree with fruit.

It’s blue as days when children loot

The hours, taking happiness

From mornings saints and seraphs bless.

And every child’s laughing for

An angel’s opened Heaven’s door,

Permitting every kid to see

The promise of felicity.

And happiness is here, on Earth,

When all respect the child’s worth.

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The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Who will recline now? And dream of lee and windward shores of Innisfree,

And other islands of the mind that life may lose, or seeking, find:

Those islands formed from reveries. They hear the buzzing blossom-bees

Among the flowers on a tree of knowledge of eternity.

And encompass the ways of time when fear’s in prose and hope’s in rhyme:

In verse rehearsed by seraphs who are deep in thought. Their heaven’s blue

Is deepening to indigo. It melds into the purple glow

Of noontide light, at Innisfree, elusive as eternity.

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The Island In The Shadows

Intangible as hope and fear, the thoughts of Lear will scorch and sear

His being. Fleeing from his past, Lear can’t escape those days that cast

A sorrow-shadow on his mind the crucible of life refined.

His memories of pain are keen as daggers Hacker Mac has seen:

The daggers of the mind, that pierce the hands and thoughts of Mac the Fierce.

When Mac the Dirk and all his gang agreed Bill Yeats deserved to hang,

They zeroed in on ‘pavements grey’. The adjective comes after. “Hey!”

Said Mac the Thane. “Bill Yeats has made an order that is retrograde.

We don’t allow such writing here, where gods are harsh and Fates unfair.

And every beaver, moose, and bear is scribbling poetry King Lear

Is reading while stumbling through a tragedy where nights are blue:

An indigo as deep as pain that permeates his heart and brain.

King Lear reads poetry Will writes about the pain on winter nights

When winds are freezing tears and hopes. Lear stumbles down the stony slopes

To where despair is weeping in the valley of the shadow. Thin

As any shadow, Lear will die where vultures croak and eagles cry.

On Lear’s grey island, hope and peace are transient as summer’s lease.”

The Island In The Sun

“Hey Mac the Knife,” Titania said, “My ears have heard, my eyes have read

About the soft and purple glow of noontide, when the heavens’ show

Brings peace to souls who live in glades where bees are buzzing. Sorrow fades

When Oberon and I find peace that’s welcome as the summer’s lease.
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And on their island, Caliban and Ariel are every man

And woman finding peace: The wind is cooling fates the gods rescind

When deities are lenient to people hounds of Hades hunt.

And Caliban and Ariel are listening to the sounds that lull

Their worries and anxieties: The buzzing of the honey-bees,

And robins singing of the ways the beaver works and otter plays.

The beaver will arise and go to fell the trees where cedars grow,

And pines are straight as paths that lead to tangled gardens thought will weed.

The otter plays in Shakespeare’s plays about the rough and rocky ways

Some people walk when they have left the island in the lake. Bereft

Of veils of the morning and the purple glow above the sand,

They tread the pavements grey as pain inhabiting the cringing brain.

Neuronal synapses will make it possible for Will to take

The stuff of life and change it to the flowers in the pastures new:

The music of the language, wrought as filigrees his thought has caught.

And caught in thought, where breezes fan the sun-warmed face of Caliban,

The “monster” called in Shakespeare’s play a “fish”, and “spawn” of nature’s way

And working, thinks about this Earth to which the womb of space gave birth.

In realms of thought, he sees the ways in which the long-lost, long-gone days

Of Terra’s dawning brought to be the delicate ecology

Of planet Earth. And Caliban is thinking of the Earth’s first man

In Biblical mythology. In depths of myths, that man can see,

Reflected in the stream of time, the future when a rhythmic rhyme

Takes readers back to ancient days when Yahweh works and thinking plays.
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The Island In Time Past

Jehovah’s busy making laws. They govern physics, spurned by Dawes

Who claims this whirling world began six thousand years ago. The fan

Of Yahweh’s hand then brushes dust to form the planets hot as lust

That burns in Falstaff’s kindled loins. Jehovah, thinking, then enjoins

The outer worlds, “Continue, cold as hearts the hurts of hate enfold.”

And (S)He creates a middle world of blue and white: The skies unfurled

Above that island in the sea of space. And makes humanity:

A species on the island called the Earth. The Deity, appalled

By people’s ways, averts the gaze of God from souls who mar the maze

Of human destiny. And so the island singing-seraphs know

As Terra, teeters on the brink. For all Miss Terra loves could sink

To Hell or to oblivion when Earth has lost what aeons won.

And on his island, Caliban is thinking of the primal man:

The first of men, an honest guy who sweats beneath the searing sky

Of Nod. And God, irascible, can see the brain within the skull

Of Adam. Yahweh hears the thought the woven web of neurons caught.

The Island In Yeats’ Book

Then Adam thinks of Innisfree, where Yeats had hives: A honey bee

Decided, for a giggle, she would sting that versifying guy.

He wrote about the purple sky of noontime, when The Noontide Sun

Marks time and tide: Brings two in one. It’s two to one that bee won’t be

In Heaven for eternity. She stung a poet. So Saint Pete

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Will send her where the demons meet the critics by the scarlet door.

Those carpers roast forevermore because they claimed the purple glow,

The play of light, the lilac show, of noontime skies at Innisfree

Has borrowed hues from purple prose a scribbler scribbled: “Yeats arose

And went to Innisfree. And then, with purple ink in purple pen,”

He wrote about a rose. And rows of beans the sweating scribbler hoes

Beside a cabin of the mind that writers build and readers find;

And clinging clay, and wattles; and viscid, viscous bottles

Of honey from the stinging bee condemned for all eternity

To buzz about the bee-loud glade in Hell where hopes and roses fade.

They wilt because the heat will kill great Satan’s saffron daffodil.

He wears that floral boutonniere where carpers curse. And critics swear

That if the Fiend will let them leave the halls of Hell, they will believe

And say that Yeats had got it right when writing of the purple light

Above the trees where Innisfree’s the home of literary bees.

“The bee is such a busy soul she has no time for birth control.”

And that is why, at Innisfree, Bill Yeats, when counting bee and bee,

Is reaching for infinity. Each working bee’s a she. And she

Will never understand the guys: Each drone’s ascending to the sky’s

Soft purple glow. And then he dies, for that’s the way of honey bees.

The he’s don’t understand the she’s. The she’s don’t understand the he’s.

And that’s the way humanity’s been muddling through the centuries.

The girls don’t understand the boys: Don’t comprehend their male joys.

The boys don’t understand the girls. A hand of faithless Fortune furls
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The banner that explains the ways of each to other. Shakespeare’s plays

Are portraits of perplexities because the baffled minds of he’s

Can’t understand the ways of she’s. And on a thousand Innisfrees

Within a thousand searching minds, each person seeks but never finds

Her Adam or his Eve who knows the sources of the joys and woes

The other gender feels. And, upon the island’s saffron sand,

The moving finger writes of ways the psyche works and language plays.

And writes about the bee-loud glade where light and dark form dappled shade.

For only in totality can every she and every he

Be part of life that journeys on through generations. If a swan

Is beautiful, then that’s because each generation knows the laws

That form, within the eye and brain, totalities of sun and rain

That give a context to the lines of comeliness. And winter-wines

Are metaphors for bracing air and brilliant sun when days are clear

And nights are ornamented by the steady stars of winter-sky.

The Island Of Swans And Loons

The snow and ice within the heart when sadness sears and joys depart

Can still be melted by the sight of snow-white swans in ice-clear light.

The veils of the morning, rent, display the light that physics bent

Around the gravity of stars. They gravely disapprove of Mars

Because he wages wars in skies the peaceful suns of nighttime prize.

And shall we have some peace there, boys and girls who seek the tranquil joys

This searching species seldom sees: Some peace upon your Innisfrees.
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And when alliteration makes a sound, so sibilant, that lakes

And wavelets form, for breezes touch a thousand minds, the loons will grin:

The wilderness is whispering of autumn’s gold and emerald’s spring

Upon the islands of the mind the haters hunt and faithful find.

The loons are listening to sounds of birds of Paradise: The grounds

Of Eden are encircled by a wall that human beings try

To climb, so they can find the bliss of days where dawn and twilight kiss.

The twilight star is indigo where fountains spring and rivers flow

Toward the autumn of the Earth to which the womb of time gave birth:

Of time so deep, so dark, profound where searchers seek the source and ground

Of Terra, and of singing stars: The music of the spheres that Mars

Can hear. A sphere called Terra takes the crimson light that planet makes,

And turns its tints to white and blue, and emerald hue of pastures new.

And on the island, Innisfree, a rose; that grows beside the lee

And starlit shore where breezes bear the fragrances of earth and air;

Is crimson as the flames that light the smiles of a summer night.

And every dawn, a cricket sings of evenings full of linnets’ wings.

A linnet is a finch whose head is sort-of brown and sort-of red.

Is that maroon? And is a loon marooned where rhymsters rhyme with ‘June’?

And write about ‘the pavements grey’ although that’s backwards as a dray

Before a heavy hauling-horse. That sweating, swearing horse, of course,

Should go before the wagon when the linnet wings before the wren.

They sing about the pavements grey as icy dawns, in Lear’s grim play,

That shiver in the ashen light. This time, ‘the pavements grey’ is right
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Because the syntax of his speech does not exceed the royal reach

Of Lear. And peace comes dropping, slow when rivers of molasses flow

Through sluggish scenes in King Lear’s dreams. Then thuggish villains’ vile schemes

Are banished by the dreamer’s flight toward the summer’s smiling night

When midnight’s all a glimmer. And the silver light on saffron sand

Is silent as the loons. Til they send forth their haunting calls that play

With memory and mind. And then they’re silent as the moons again.

The loons and moons in dream-scape’s nights are calling, shining, through the whites

And blacks of all these pages where the joys of Jack and woes of Lear

Are human as the calls of loons. They haunt the hopes and hearts of tunes

Of happiness and suffering that balance on the nighthawk’s wing

When Jack or Lear is dreaming. And the saffron light on silver sand

Is beaming in their dreaming when the tunes of glory march through glen

And valley. Yea, although he walks through valleys where the Horseman stalks

His shadow, Lear not afraid though dirges and laments are played,

Because the horse is riding on the Rider. So the Horseman, wan

And pale, can’t catch up to Lear who’s walking though a landscape sere

As scenes in which he tells the gods that they, and Fortune, act like bawds.

The Island Of The Rising Sun

A bawd’s a woman who has kept a cat-house. Listening, Falstaff’s wept

To hear about The Rising Sun. There is a house where Jack is one.

Although he takes the space of two because his size could rival New

Orleans. Within the house of cats, Jack finds a tabby hunting rats
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That ratted on the king, so creeps could find King Lear where Mercy weeps.

That tabby tom takes time to toss those rats to Hades’ waiting boss

Who toasts them in the flames of Hell. Then eats them, so the rats can’t tell

The villains -- in the play of lead that’s molten as the words Lear said

To true Cordelia -- where Lear is wandering on heath-land sere

As withered grass when autumn’s died beneath cold clouds: Those heavens cried.

Who would not weep for Jack? “Not I,” said Lear. “That randy raunchy guy

Has had more fun than Sophocles when playing games with Helen’s knees

And all attached thereto.” And Jack told Socrates that Helen’s back

In town. The topless towers burned. And topless Helen, Jack has learned,

Is also bottomless. And he’s the first in line. So Sophocles

And Socrates must take their turn when towers smolder, lechers yearn,

And all the far pavilions stand, and so do Jack and all that band

Of satyrs. Sadly, Sophocles has fallen off the comely knees

Of Helen. Homely Socrates is pondering the birds and bees.

And contemplating bee-loud glades where honey’s sweet as modest maids

Who sing the song of Inverness where four-and-twenty soon were less.

The veils of the morning fall from Helen. And the towers, tall

And stony-strong, will topple like Jack’s male glory. Glory? Strike

A match within the darkness, Jack, revealing truth: For, in the sack

The hill you’re over doesn’t bear the name of Fanny. You may care

To bare your rear and all attached. But every scheme that you have hatched

To bed the wench named Fanny Hill is dead as plays the critics kill.

So play your plays: The scenes that Will created, Jack. Go chase your Jill.
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Remember how the fans would laugh at every scheme and dream and gaff

Of Falstaff falling, after sex. Regina lasts and lusts. But Rex

Is finished. Yet, will rise again. “But when?” asks Jill. “Oh Jack, oh when?”

Jack and Jill go up the hill. But Fanny Hill stays down. She’s ill

Because diseases she has caught from many men have made her rot

Inside. So sorry Fanny weeps that she had sex with vicious creeps

Who used her and abused her when she sold herself for wealth and pelf. Then

She listens to the linnet, wren, and robin singing of the glen

That hides within the isle’s heart. The inland island stands apart

From all the sorrows and the pain that cause the clouds to weep their rain.

The Island Of The Seasons

Within the glen, a path ascends to where, among the pines, it bends

Away. Like life, it twists and turns between the cliffs and oaks and ferns.

Ascending up the path, Jack walks with Jill to where the deer and fox

Are watching, knowing no one harms the wildlife. Because the charms

And chantings of the “sisters” in the Scottish play -- where witches grin

Because they like the haggis jokes in scenes where Macker’s dagger pokes

The awful offal, boiled oats, and suet in a bag. It bloats

Because the contents of the bag are toxic to the witches. “Hag!”

The “sisters” shout. “A word that we consign to Hell’s eternity.” --

Have put a curse upon the soul of any hunter. Demons toll

Their Hellish knells where Satan dwells: The charmless chimes of Hades’ bells

Will greet the soul of anyone who taints the isle with a gun.
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And Jill and Jack will have some peace where crimson ink on autumn’s lease

Is bordered by the orange, gold and cinnabar the skies enfold

With blue: The borders of the page on which the seasons thus engage

Themselves and pledge their plight to form the sculpted snows a winter’s storm

Creates. And then, the green of spring when Innisfree is freed to bring

Its warmth to every plant that grows in envy of the fabled rose.

And every fold of sculpted snow is copied where the roses grow.

And then the summer-sun will shine, as warming as the summer-wine

Of metaphor delighting minds that sorrow’s lost and August finds.

And on the hills and in the glens, the summer-songs of warblers, wrens,

And thrushes say to Jack and Jill that every trill describes a rill

That’s chuckling as it plans to call upon a mossy waterfall.

And then the autumn comes again, and every wonder known to men

And women can’t compete with trees enwoven in the harmonies

Of nature. Jack may never see a God as perfect as a tree:

Jack stole that line. From whom? From me. Then Falstaff sings a threnody

Lamenting autumn that must fade to ashen skies November’s made.

The Island Of Earth And Dust

A raven flies beside the shore, and listens to the evermore

Of waves that never cease to lap upon the sands. Jack Falstaff’s map

Portrays the isle: Every cove where egrets nest and foxes rove

Is witness to their struggle for their lives and livings. Evermore,

It must be thus. Yet Falstaff knows, despite the wealth of dearth and woes,
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That people could create a world where flags of kindness are unfurled

Above the whirling planet. Though the endless cold of space won’t care

If life on Earth’s reduced to dust by weapons and by power-lust.

The Island Of The Mind

The wavelets lap against the rocks where shorebirds form their formless flocks.

For every bird will skitter on the sands, as fawn as rainless lawn,

In seeming randomness. And yet, since God does not throw dice and bet,

The plovers practise and rehearse the laws that rule the universe.

For mathematics rules the show where shorebirds run and hours flow.

They’re like the Bluenose on the dime: They speed in space, and turn in time.

In space and time, in prose and rhyme, Will Shakespeare limns the olive, lime,

And celadon and other greens portrayed in summer’s sylvan scenes.

And walking on the isle, Jack has cast his mind and vision back

To Shakespeare’s words. Because Bill Yeats does not describe the emerald gates

Where shrubs are brushed aside so one can pass where trees have trapped the sun:

The light and energy that make great groves of roots so trees can slake

Their thirst. And if the forests die beneath a hot and toxic sky,

A thirst for human life won’t save this species from an early grave.

Jack Falstaff thirsts for truths. Though he is prone to lusty lechery,

He also longs for verities that swim in dim uncharted seas.

Around the isle, truths may hide in depths beneath the noontide tide.

Within the heart of Falstaff’s heart, the depths within the tide impart

And limn, in light, some truths that he’s now found: Symbolic verities.
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The noontide sun, the cedars, pines, and other symbols in the lines

Of Prospero, are also seen above the blue and in the green.

They paint the isle in a mind the truths within the symbols find.

Within the heart of primal pine is tree-born, time-worn turpentine.

And yet, the resin from the tree preserves, in gold, an ancient bee.

Within the heart of Falstaff, he is pumping blood the salty sea

Is cousin to, and mother of the crest that floated Noah’s dove.

The dove of peace is wounded, maimed by force the olive branch has named

When winds were whispering in leaves remembering the strife life grieves.

The ancient tree that held the bee is at the heart of symmetry.

The isle’s round as ancient walls that circled Eden’s golden falls:

The autumns of the patriarch when Adam, for a bet and lark,

Was dining on the fruit that he believed Jehovah didn’t see.

That wasn’t fruit from trees of life that Adam shared with Eve, his wife

Preferring knowledge to the bliss she felt when mindless breezes kiss

In Paradise. And not the fruit of knowledge-trees. To have a hoot,

The first of men decided he would pick an apple from a tree:

Not pomegranates, knowledge-fruit for every seed can seed the root

Of understanding. Oh, the tree that hugs the heart of symmetry?

With roots so deep in fertile earth exceeding, in its value, worth

Of every gem a miner’s found within “the dank and dirty ground”.

That ancient tree is at the heart of Innisfree. The breezes part

Its needles so the branches sound the whispered lies Jack Falstaff found.

Not everything is true, he sees, for mice tell lies, and so can trees.
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The Island Of The Mice

Bill Yeats has built a cabin made of branches cut in ancient shade

The tree has cast upon the ground. The branches, woven wattle bound

With clay and cord, have formed his house, and stakes to hold the beans. A mouse

Will dine upon nutritious rows of beans. And then, the traps will close.

And Yeats will gaze at captive mice that try to save, by making nice,

Their furry necks. “You murine swine! You thieves!” He glares. “Those beans were mine!”

“Hey Bill,” a mouse decides to say, “With golden coins we mice will pay

For every bean we stole from you. And plant more beans in pastures new.

Then you can harvest bins of beans. And live beyond a poet’s means

By spending golden guilders we will give, to you, on Innisfree.”

So Yeats releases all the mice. And then he looks. And then looks twice.

But nowhere can he find the coins that Exodus, on stone, enjoins

The mice to leave, for William Yeats, beneath the tree. And so he baits

Another score of traps. And hopes, though mice aren’t nice, at least they’re dopes

Whose greed will lead them into traps. “Then I will kill the fur-faced saps!”

But best laid plans of mice and men: We know the rest. And once again,

Bill Yeats is eating spam because those bean-fed mice ignored the laws.

He owned those bean rows, and a hive for honey bees. But murine jive,

Misleading talk, has led him to walk aimlessly through pastures new,

Infuriated by the ways of mice. He ponders Shakespeare’s plays

Where kings, like mice, are in a maze with no escape from final days.

The cricket sings of men and mice. The linnet sings the ditty twice.

They both are singing in the verse Bill Yeats has written. And a curse
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Will Shakespeare wrote is sung by mice at ends of days the twilights splice.

The mouse of twilight’s bluish hues are painted by the evening news:

He hears so many ‘stories’ grim as Fortune’s grin or Horseman’s whim,

They make him blue: As blue can be beneath the ancient lying-tree.

And then he hears the whispering of branch and breeze. “A tyrant-king

Or other despot really is a guy so nice he saves the fizz

In opened soda bottles so the plebes can watch the bubbles go

Into the air. Where seraphs weep in joy, because the despots keep

Their underlings and underclass below the gas those tyrants pass.

So, mouse, you needn’t feel blue. For all is good. And that is true.”

The mouse believes the lying-tree. And so the blue he used to be

Has now been changed to rosy shades that Mars bestows in song-loud glades.

The Island Of The Ages

They hear the songs Anne Hathaway composed upon a sunny day

When colours of the music matched the hues the frosts of autumn hatched.

‘For all the world’s an egg.’ Was that what Shakespeare wrote to bell the cat

Collectively called critics? He, bemoaning poets’ penury,

Decided he would write a play: “A comedy that’s sure to pay;

It’s as you like it.” But, it bombed. The fingers of the Govs then glommed

The petty pennies fans had paid in hope of seeing Falstaff laid:

Placed supine in a gaping grave, “Just wide enough to take the knave,”

Says Pistol. With his blunderbuss, that husband curses Falstaff’s cuss.

Then shoots Jack Falstaff in the balls? “How loud the thump when Falstaff falls!”
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So sorry, fans, who hoped and paid: That play’s about a bee-loud glade

Where Jacques says, “All the world’s a stage. And every day’s another page

In Fortune’s script: That heartless bawd, with morals of an ancient god,

Decides if you will live or die. The demons grin and angels cry,

Beholding Fortune’s ruthless ways when pipers pipe and Kismet pays.

The infant pukes in nurse’s arms. The schoolboy sounds his loud alarms

So all will know the bishop, soon, will curse the pols he likes to moon.

And then the lover seeding, so, the wild oats that grow and grow.

And then the soldier, knowing well the paths of glory lead to Hell.

And then the justice, knowing that, ‘The law’s an ass.’ And there’s a cat

And unicorn upon the tome that severs souls from hope and home.

And then ‘the slippered pantaloon’ remembering the loons and moon

When he canoed on wild lakes that Terra gave and Tempus takes.

The final scene’s oblivion, when life has lost and death has won.”

And pondering on Innisfree, in eye and mind, Bill Yeats can see

The seven ages in the clouds that float from christening clothes to shrouds.

“That name is Jacques. It isn’t Jakes. And certainly, for Heavens’ sakes,

It isn’t Jayquees, giving fits to Frenchmen hearing acting Brits

Declaim that ‘As You Like It’ name as if the lovers’ language-game

Is cricket.” And the cricket sings, “The batsman bats. And bats have wings.”

The Island Of The Bee-Loud Glade

The veils of the morning drop to where the crickets eat the crop

Of beans Yeats planted. “Never quit. Some day will bring a rhyming hit
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Of the twelve books Michael Shea has written:

How many pages are in each book?

And how many pages are on this website?

The Allegro Quartet

The Judgement of Solomon -- 403 pages -- Forty pages

Eden Lost -- 338 pages -- Thirty-three pages

The Silver Apples of the Moon -- 334 pages -- Thirty-three pages

The Blue Star of Twilight -- 361 pages -- Thirty-six pages

The Adagio Quartet

The Sable Swans -- 366 pages – Thirty-seven pages

The Willows of the Brook -- 350 pages – Thirty-five pages

The Field of the Lilies -- 364 pages – Thirty-six pages

The Noontide Sun -- 326 pages – Thirty-two pages

The Andante Quartet

The Pine and Cedar -- 299 pages – Thirty pages

This Rough Magic -- 377 pages – Thirty-seven pages

The Mountain Nymph -- 394 pages – Thirty-eight pages

The Seeds of Time -- 333 pages – Thirty-four pages

The excerpts can be read, free of any fee, on the author’s website:

MichaelShea12books.com

Thank you for reading excerpts from the books.

If you wish to read the books in their entirety, each is, or will be, available.

They are published by ( ).

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The twelve books are dedicated to my daughter, Marie-Laure,

and to my brothers, Philip and Gerald.

I completed the books in the following years:

The Judgement of Solomon - 2010

Eden Lost - 2011

The Silver Apples of the Moon - 2012

The Blue Star of Twilight - 2012

The Sable Swans - 2013

The Willows of the Brook - 2013

The Field of the Lilies - 2014

The Noontide Sun - 2015

The Pine and Cedar - 2015

This Rough Magic - 2016

The Mountain Nymph - 2016

The Seeds of Time - 2017

Thank you for reading this selection from This Rough Magic.

To read the remaining pages of This Rough Magic, please buy the book.

From my office, looking through the window at my apple tree and the cedars and maples,

best wishes from Michael Shea.

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