Shadowlands

Before my eyes there leap and leer
appearences of sences five
they fill my mind, seduce my soul
and claim to be the truth.
Yet in my heart I hear the call
of spirit voices, far away,
that tell of objects far more real
and solid sound and permanent
than any things of which I think I know
or love or cherish or desire.

And so I turn, from dark cave’s wall
where on projected shaddows grey cavort;
I turn my back on life and seek out death:
not in despair and not as bane,
but as the portal to a life beyond
of so much being and subtlety
that it shall trump this petty world
of sense and sensibility
of joys and pleasures gay
of daliance and sweet delight
of pain and loss and suffering.

For in that place of gladsome light,
where Beauty’s seen direct,
(not in the images of fleeting things,
but in its ideal form sublime)
there is such joy and peace
that every soul enlightened
then can taste the Bread of Life
the provinder of Wisdom’s board.
They sit down full supplied
their friend is Immortality
thence they are well content.

Symposium

Socrates stands silent, without the house.

He sways to and fro;

though there is no breeze.

His daemon speaks,

in words of tantalising uncertainty;

warning of danger, urging on with cue.

Within, the revellers laugh,

intent to entertain

themselves with wine and song and jest.

They miss his presence,

await his profile at the door.

Hopeful of his words, yet fearful too.

The seer breaks his pose;

returning to this world of doubt.

Regaining his will and purpose,

he looks about.

He shrugs and enters into its flimsy reality.

It is most unsatisfactory,

but will have to do.

His eyes peer into shadows

which lie all about him.

They reveal their remote origins

to his mind

as they obscure their immediate

intentions from his eyes.

He knows at last his will,

with doubt he’s through.

He wishes to advance;

move forward in this place;

join his friends within;

enjoy their fellowship.

He wishes much more.

To pass beyond this place

to enter into a richness

which few subdue.

Socrates bows his head

and enters the festive hall.

His presence fills the room,

the party song falls silent.

Let us speak of love,

dear friends, he says.

Let us praise the source

of all life new.

Account is made of Eros, ancient of days;

wisest and most beneficent,

yet maddener of men;

neither spirit nor matter

– but interlocutor between –

carrying precious gifts

reconciliation to pursue.

Socrates is silent. Then he frowns

and shakes his head.

What truth was spoke

was not spoke true enough;

weighed down by quest for earthly ease.

Such phantasms, he knows,

he must eschew.

He recalls an aged seeress,

Diotima she was named.

She once instructed him in love;

when he was young

and brash and wilful

and fully self-assured.

She cut him down a peg:

her words he will review.

Love is desire for beauty

with good outcome;

life leading to life and on to eternity.

Beauty is next to Good,

and supplies the defect

of sight to restore

what wisdom once knew.

The end of love is fellowship of being;

union with the source of life and hope,

attainment of clear sight

and understanding

sure knowledge of beauty

and justice true.

All love and beauty

in this world is perilous;

an intimation of

what lies beyond the veil,

an incentive to kindness

and spur to courage

but also a nagging distraction

from these two.

Then in storms Alcibiades,

apple of the sage’s eye;

yet rotten to the core.

Traitor both to tutor and to State.

Sure of himself, overflowing with hubris,

ravishing in countenance and thew.

He berates his erstwhile lover,

speaking of deceit,

how he promised much, but gave nothing;

not tenderness, nor comfort of embrace,

but by cultured neglect all passion slew.

He accuses the silent Socrates

of inhumanity,

of spiritual conceit and direst pride

being impossible to live with or without:

his friendship he does most sorely rue!

A tear wells in the seer’s face;

but he turns away

from what he has loved,

and always will love,

in this world: knowing that the warning,

once heard, he can never misconstrue.

This spoiled man, he knows,

exemplifies full well

(but without spark of intent

or glimmer of awareness)

the power of love to pervert and corrupt,

when divorced from its object due.