To sing, oh Muse, is freedom over time
and life itself, the cage whose walls I climb
with hopes of seeing what you have to show;
but on my eyes a creeping moss now grows:
my life and love have doubled, but that light5
has blinded me and pushed you from my sight.
Then like a nightingale upon my back
into my ears you sing your verses black,
into my ears you sing your verses white,
into my ears you whisper still that blight.10
Dispel my doubts of why you torment so,
as if to you there's something more I owe
than this elusive tale you play through me:
as my musician, me as just your key.
I tried to shut you from my life, but then15
you pecked my ears and made me hear again
the tales you whisper from the great beyond
and broke my heart with nothing but your song.
So sing! Unless I sing for you, you’ll stay
inside my ear and give me not a day20
of rest or play. My nightmares ever grow.
Will singing for you make my thoughts run slow?
Will you let me sleep in peace at last
if yet again you force me through the vast
and cold abyss you love? I know your gift25
is still the only thing that lets me lift
my mind into the stars above. So sing!
Play coy with someone else, with me you sing!
We’ll sing the story of the English girl who lay in bed,
whose parents hoped despite it all, whose doctor worked in dread,30
for nothing could revive her strength. With nothing to be done
away, her parents brought her home where she could see the sun.
The doctor told them sun was good, but air was more to blame:
miasma had its hold of her, the window from its frame
should go, but nothing could have hurt the poor girl any more35
than hearing children playing out across the dew-dropped moor.
She longed to join them even more than longed to be alive.
Most girls at seventeen years old began to live and thrive
and grow into full women. Beatrice could not believe
they’d give up being free as birds up in a tree whose leaves40
and blossoms always stayed pristine and soon to open wide
when she had never spread her wings, and in a cage she died.
Her room was strewn with trinkets, what a pretty cage it was!
Pretty to her visitors who couldn’t see its flaws.
Her parents filled her room with things and colors bold and bright,45
but looking at them every day had burned and strained her sight.
Her only respite from her thoughts and hatred for her life
were books of gods and monsters, heroes and their times of strife:
the war of Troy, the journey home for Trojan and for Greek;
Ulysses had a home to reach, Aeneas had to seek50
one far away to build a life when all he knew was burned,
but though the sea was hard and all the hateful gods returned
to torment him and curse his crew and send them off their course,
still other gods and goddesses would lend them all their force,
and then they founded Rome itself. They weathered out their storm55
and built a town with Vesta’s love to keep them always warm.
Maybe, thought the sickly girl, the gods were still around
and waiting for the one they chose to rest within the ground
where Pluto’d greet her lovingly and hold her in his arms
away from sickness, cages, fears, and all those living harms.60
Someone out there loved her so, and someone truly cared;
why else would living be so hard? Why would she be so scared?
Why would the world have taken from her everything she loved
and given nothing in return? Why would great God above
desert her, hate her, give her sickness all her years on Earth;65
deliver her straight to the grave mere minutes since her birth?
Pluto loved her. This she said to stop from going mad
and dropped her bitter temperament. Her parents both were glad,
but Mother felt a stab of pain. She saw her daughters love
for life fade out. But now she’d take with grace her place above.70
Upon the same day as her birth a winged man appeared
with feathers black and sword in hand, and though she should have feared
his deathly craft (for Death he was), he spoke her name aloud,
and overjoyed he knew her name, she sat up tall and proud.
“Beatrice, get out of bed and pay your destined fare.75
No matter if you beg and plead, you cannot keep your hair
uncut. I’ve learned this once before, and never will again
be swayed by deals or senseless pleas. I’d sooner drown you in the fen
than let you take my due from me, my heaven-given right.
But if you want to make me laugh, then tell me of your plight.”80
“Please don’t laugh, I’m not afraid of going down below
and falling in my lover’s arms, and when the nectar flows,
I’ll feel some joy for all his world I find myself within,
and sing a song for all the souls as my new reign begins,
and though I know that Proserpine was queen before my birth,85
I’m sure she’d help me take my place with her beneath the earth.”
For just a moment Death forgot his malice and his hate
and laughed at the absurdity of her imagined fate.
He dropped his sword and clutched his sides and grinned from ear to ear.
Black feathers fell from shaking wings which, meant to stir up fear,90
did nothing more than show his mirth. And with this sudden change,
the girl believed him evil still and, worried at this strange
new attitude, she said, “I don’t see why you laugh at me.
I thought that I was to be held and loved eternally.”
He would have told her she was wrong if he could force his lips95
to speak the words. He raised his head, but down again it dipped,
and, thinking how her hope would break when seeing how her death
meant nothing to the deathless god, he seethed and slowed his breath.
His smile twisted, pure no more, and with malicious glee.
To think a boat in harbor, having never gone to sea,100
would catch a foreign prince’s eye before a murd’rous wave
destroyed its hopes of sailing or of having worth to save.
“Of course!” he said. “Forgive my laughs.” He placed his sword upon
her neck and cut her hair and led her to the Acheron.
He didn’t pause to let her glimpse the children playing ‘round105
the aspen shaking in the wind, whose leaves fell to the ground.
They passed a man and woman lying by the river’s shore,
cooing and caressing both the other they adored.
When Beatrice reached out her hand in greeting as she passed,
the lovers shuddered violently and held each other fast.110
They could not see her, but they heard a sickly silent song,
and Death ignored them both and dragged poor Beatrice along
this river’s flow through patchy moors then underneath the ground,
and through a crevice in the earth Death slipped without a sound
and dragged the girl into the dark. Though dark, the girl could see115
as if it were a twilight’s gloom, and barring certainty
of color, or of vibrancy, or depth, or wear, or sheen,
the girl perceived a massive throng of souls trapped in between
the cave wall and the river, and to the river fell
some luckless souls who screamed in pain, and fruitlessly they yelled120
their pleas for mercy. Creaking wood and scraping chains made deaf
the ferryman, whose fraying beard obscured his cracking breath,
whose tired eyes so long ago had lost the will to see
the fear and pain of all the souls he saw eternally.
Some wouldn’t ever leave this cave. More souls came by the day125
than five of him could in five weeks come grab and take away.
He sometimes cried, and as the tears rolled down his withered face,
he felt a sadness in his heart he didn’t want to place,
so down he cast his eyes, ignoring all the writhing crowd,
ignoring those who splashed his boat and cursed the boatman proud.130
But Death stepped forth and blocked the way of throngs of groaning souls
to bring up Beatrice to Charon’s boat. Ahead, her goals
so poorly thought, behind, her life and screaming, restless shades
while Death reproached them rich and poor and shoved them with his blade
to let her speak. She shaking stood and told the ferryman135
all of her life and of her death and of the holy plan
which called her to the world below, and Charon blankly stared.
Death put his finger to his lips and pulled a golden pair
of coins out of his pouch. He placed them in old Charon’s palm,
and Charon took them silently and waved the girl along.140
The splinters of the rotting boat cut deep into her thighs,
but she sat straight. Death sat across. The cursing and the cries
of all the cheated souls escaped unheard from their dead lips
and down along the reeking rocks whose rotted mosses drip
away as all the cries of pain fade into naught. The boat145
goes on in silence. Charon wants to warn the girl. His throat
won’t open. He tells himself he can’t talk over Death
and casts his eyes to look away and save his cracking breath.
The river’s back rose up and fell like coils of a snake.
The waves grew high and twisted ‘round so on the boat they’d break150
and splash the passengers. Though Death and Charon both stood fast,
and firm, unflinching, Beatrice fell crying from the blast.
The water felt like needles, the waves they felt like knives,
and Beatrice had never felt such pain in all her life
or death. She huddled under Charon, hoping for some rest155
and shelter from the pain and fear, but all her very best
attempts to dodge her suffering just doubled up her woe
as water pierced her from above and splinters from below.
She trembled and she whimpered even once the waves had ceased
their raging and their gnashing. Like a pious, fallen priest160
she muttered and she prayed. She flinched at every little drip
she heard resound around the moss and rocks. Old Charon dipped
down low, and grabbed her wrist, and hauled her up upon the shore
where they had stopped: a moor of rock as ghastly as before
but just as lacking in the things which soothed the weary sight,165
although their sight was cut off by the solid crumbling height
of ancient cliff which stood ahead. A narrow flight of stairs
wound up the side, adorned with souls caught in the traps and snares
which held them by their ankles staked and swinging in the breeze
which set the scent of carrion deep in the sickly freeze170
which eagerly coerced the girl to stumble, slip, and fall
into a hidden trap and join the others on that wall.
But Death was with the girl, and he made sure she didn’t stray
into the traps around. She used his footsteps as her way
and as her stepping-stones across the dangerous frozen sea175
that was the rocks and steps. Then one soul twisted ‘round to see
who passed, and seeing Death come with this girl called out her name,
and with wet eyes he conjured up his focus and exclaimed,
“Oh, Beatrice, my niece! I hoped you’d never walk this path,
at least until much later, and every day I asked180
whatever gods watch over men and girls to keep you safe
and keep you always far away from this dank wretched place.
I tried to walk around the fields, but never could forget
my baby brother staying strong. I thought I could outwit
the guards, the dog, the boatman too, and make sure that he fed,185
and that he drank, and that he took the time to lay his head
and get some sleep regardless of his worry for your life.
But gods, I never wanted you to die in all that strife.
I thought that maybe I could just pop out to say hello
and keep you company for just a night before below190
I’d slip again, unnoticed. But the traps move every day
and even though I focused and made sure I went the way
that I was shown by Mercury, I fell and stumbled in.
But you, you have a moment here before despair begins!
Run! Free yourself! Get out of here—!” Here, Death covered his face195
and slammed his head against the wall until he lay in place.
And Beatrice stayed for a spell. “Your fate just isn’t mine.
You were brought here simply for your use of all your time.
Such fears and pains are not for me.” She placed her shaking hand
upon his cheek and wiped the tear that lonely down it ran.200
Death grabbed her wrist and dragged her from her uncle swinging still
and onward, farther up the steps. She felt her wilted will
embolden with each step she took—she thought her choice was free,
but if she had done otherwise coerced she would have been.
The land atop the ragged cliff was covered with its shrubs205
of faded, grayish asphodel. Some had been cut to stubs
by idle ghosts who, lacking for a better thing to do,
took out their boredom on the plants. The whip-poor-wills that flew
along the porous ceiling cried incessantly and plunged
to rip the petals from rotting stems left in the grunge.210
Pythagoras and Plato kept their conversation sad
with Mill and Bentham. Though before delighted to have had
these conversations, years had passed, and nothing new was said
to prick their minds, and while the cultist rubbed his weary head
and brushed aside the words he heard, another shade flew past.215
The swift Achilles flew on foot, and none were quite as fast
as him, so no one followed suit. His lonely, hollow race
he ran alone. Before, the other shades looked on his pace
as challenge, but for centuries they tried and failed to win,
so swift Achilles never would earn victory again.220
And Sisyphus, who nearly reached the top of his bald hill,
watched his boulder slip away, and with a desperate thrill,
he watched it roll its way back down. He looked around the gloom
and laughed at all the wretches there below who had been doomed
to run in circles with no goal. He started walking slow225
back to his boulder and his task and purpose far below.
And Beatrice soon noticed Death had left her there alone
with one foot in the slimy soil and one upon the stone
which crumbled on the hanging spirits tied up on the wall.
She felt it break, she pitched, and then she failed to stop her fall230
into the fungus, dirt, and bugs that fed the plants and birds;
she pushed herself up, coughing. All the other spirits heard,
and even one or two glanced up, but none came forth to see
or try to help or get her news of those above and free.
She stood and caught her balance, waving off the birds that flew235
around her head and squinted through the grayish-greenish hue
that cloaked the Underworld. She saw a warm and cheerful light
which faintly glowed a mile off atop a hill whose height
and power dwarfed the hill that felt the boulder rise and fall.
The light sat safe and hid, protected by a gnarled wall240
that tried and failed to keep the light and cheer from getting out
and reaching those stuck down below. The girl put down her doubt
and weaved her way about the bushes choking out her way
and shedding on her stinking petals, lifeless, dull, and gray.
‘Round and ‘round the rugged rocks a ragged rascal ran245
first the one way, then the other, hiding from a man
who shouted, screamed, and shook his fist. The rogue held to a vase
which gleamed against his mossy garb and darkish, tanish face.
As though from Sherwood’s trees themselves, his shirt was emerald green
and pants were dirty brown, and for it all what most was clean250
about him was his quiver, arrows, bow with oaken sheen.
He thought he saw an opening and made to pass the guard,
but he was caught. The looming man brought him into the yard
beyond the iron gates. The vernal bandit threw his loot
into the field, to the ghosts. It snapped a tender shoot255
of newly-budding asphodel as it fell on the ground.
And not a soul so much as turned to wonder at the sound.
The rogue was dragged beyond the gate and to a sideways path
which led him down to Tartarus to face the burning wrath
the King decreed. He was shut up inside a pitch-black maze260
whose stony walls did shift and writhe, whose jagged floor did raise
and dip and cut his hands and arms and feet—his boots deprived
from him he walked on glass and slate, and always he survived
to feel the cuts and pains that would kill any man alive.
He had to walk that endless maze and find a golden key265
that would unlock the iron door, but since he couldn’t see
he had to run his hand along the wall and slice his palm
for any hope of knowing where he was and where he’d gone.
But every night a Fury would descend and send him snakes
and spiders crawling o’er his feet. His misery she’d make,270
but silent and unknown to him she’d do a second deed
and move his golden prize away so that he’d never free
himself, but in a stagnant pool of water he might see
the glimmer of his foolish hope and of the gilded key.
Beatrice dashed through the door before it slammed and latched275
and stole her way along the path. She thought the man who snatched
the vase was gone, and justice served, but she knew not the pain
undue that Robin Hood now felt. But if she did, what then?
Would she turn back and run away? Or would she steel again
her nerves and tell herself that Pluto knew the best for all280
and wrongly seemed unjust at times? The spirits on the wall
had not convinced her to turn back and give up on her dream
of being loved here after death. Or else her death that seemed
so justified and favored would turn out to be a fraud
of cruelty even Parliament would cringe to give their nod.285
So on she put her blinders, and to the golden doors
she took her steps and stumbled. Then, when standing just before
the silent house, she looked about, and to the guardsman said,
“Oh, you who guard the palace from the envy of the dead
and save our wondrous Pluto from the cares upon his head,290
will you not open up the gate? The king that waits inside
waits for his lover that he culled and wouldn’t want to hide
away from all his glory. Here I am, don’t make him wait.
Deliver me into his hands and ease his sorry state.”
The shade was at a loss for words, and as he worked his jaw295
to figure out what he should say, he glanced aside and saw
dread Proserpine, who wore a dress of stars and dying suns
bequeathed to her by Night herself. Those pricks of light were spun
into a cloth of space and void, which fell in inky black.
The guard went pale, his eyes went wide, and then his jaw went slack300
as back he shrunk from her: the rightful Queen of Pluto’s throne.
Within the shadows where she stood her spiteful fury shone.
But then she stepped, and in the light which fell through window’s glass
her fury seemed much softer and benevolence did pass
across her face which twisted to a grin of friendly cheer.305
She kept her face from startling the girl or spreading fear
into her heart or head. The guard had darted from his post
to only leave the holy Queen and squalid, stupid ghost.
“I hear you’re here to see the King. One more is quite a joy,
especially if, like you say, you’re now his newest toy310
who’s come to take my spot.” She stopped and gathered up her dress.
“So why not come to dinner then and make sure that your death
has all the meaning that it should?” She threw open the door,
and all the candles squirmed their light across the stony floor
in welcome, or in laughter at the girl stood at the door.315
The floor was rough-hewn cobblestone, the curtains silken gold,
and all along each iron-wreathed wall were trophies to behold:
the spear of great Achilles, whose mother missed the heel;
the shattered frame of Orphey’s lyre, which made the monarch feel
a hint of mercy for the first of times, and for the last;320
and there beside, the Nemean pelt was taken from the grasp
of Hercules, who raged and interfered with Death’s exchange—
Death gave an inch, he took a mile, and none that was arranged
was given up. He had some herbs all dried and spread about,
all taken from the German man who felt the right to doubt325
the clear instructions given him about who he could heal,
and who had groveled in the end for just one life to steal.
The King sat on his ivory throne as cautiously they walked
towards him. Proserpine pushed up the tiny girl to talk,
and so she did: “Oh Pluto, thank your kindness and your love;330
I used to think so highly of the world that kicked and shoved
me into bed for months and years, and kept me without end
a prisoner in my own body. Morpheus had sent
me dreams and fancies to accept the wondrous role I play
in death. And when I looked outside and wished that I could stay335
alive forever, I could think of you and of my place
beside of you, beside your queen, a pretty, fragile face
that you adore. And though I know I’m young, I still can flaunt
myself, or keep you company, or anything you want.”
Pluto glared at Proserpine, and then back at the Brit.340
“Let’s first explain just who you are and why you think you get
to breathe my air and tread my floor?” He motioned her to sit.
But Beatrice stood like a fawn who had just realized
her mother now was far away, and that the glassy eyes
which lay a foot beyond the trees belong to vile hounds,345
and when the fawn begins to run, the hunting horn does sound
around the forest wide, and leaping ‘cross the brooks for fear
that she’d be eaten, separates herself from other deer
who might have helped her hide herself, or else confuse the dogs.
And like our fawn, our Beatrice ran out into the fog350
and ran past all the other ghosts, but, coming to the steps
she heard her uncle’s warning burned into her mind. She leapt
first left, then right, then turned around and stumbled through the brush,
the petals falling off on her and coating her with mush.
She lost herself. The only thing that she could see around355
was Sisyphus upon his hill. He spoke without a sound
that she could hear from all this way, but then he seemed to laugh,
and then she turned and saw the Queen, her eyes alight in wrath.
She didn’t speak, and Beatrice fell to the ground in pain
and stammered her apologies for being proud and vain.360
The Queen was silent. As the words fell from the poor girl’s lips
they fell as petals. From her eyes the sweetest nectar dripped
in place of tears. She tried to stand, but found her hands and knees
were rooted strong into the ground. The last thing that she sees
before her sight betrays her too: the queen now turns away.365
And Beatrice begs one last time for Proserpine to stay.
The whip-poor-wills swoop down and pick at Beatrice’s flesh
and beat her clothing with their wings, and now she has been threshed
and her humanity removed, the pain will never leave,
and there, an asphodel among the rest, she wilts and grieves.370