The Robert Plant Conundrum: Listening

Robert Plant Conundrum - Lovers By Erzsebet Korb

Metaphysical Music

Deeper than each in each may see,
For here begins the mystery,
Mind within mind yet mind beyond,
Heart within heart, all distance gone;
So lovers dream a winter’s night
And in still darkness study light.

Deep in their eyes the moon and sun,
Alembics where all truth is won,
Love in the flesh and love beside,
Thought where no hour ever died
That did not bring the vision near,
Of lover, in lover, to lover clear.

Deepest of all, this intensity,
Spirit’s universe, our infinity,
Of sighs, regrets, dismay, delight,
All of the dark and all the bright;
Every brief glare of burning star,
Every dark void, where lovers are.

-Tony Kline

Robert Plant Conundrum - Daphnis and Chloe by Francois Gerard

Communion

The communion of silent forces in this world,
what they kept secret at Eleusis, the inner
voices, thoughts, imaginings, what moves
the crowd, fires art, stirs eroticism, flows
sweetly through hidden places of the mind.

Like lovers glancing at the same shining moon,
or in the same moment thinking of each other,
a precious moment, silent, secret and unknown
that nonetheless has power in the flesh, echoes
down corridors of mirrors in multiple gleaming.

Not what we say but what, having said, we know,
the mutual implicit understanding, this earned gift,
so that with no words needed, in speechless distance
each performs their movement towards the other,
the communion of silent forces in this world.

-Tony Kline

Reunited

Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads of that old dream,
And go on happy as before, and seem
Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.

Let us forget the graves which lie between
Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
That rusted out the gold-work of the years,
The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.

Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!

Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
The old love shone no warmer then than now.

Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes
I find the lost sweet memory of my youth,
Bright with the holy radiance of thy truth,
And hallowed with the blue of summer skies.

Tie up the broken threads and let us go,
Like reunited lovers, hand in hand,
Back, and yet onward, to the sunny land
Of our To Be, which was our Long Ago.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Tired I am tired to-night, and something,
The wind maybe, or the rain,
Or the cry of a bird in the copse outside,
Has brought back the past and its pain.
And I feel, as I sit here thinking,
That the hand of a dead old June
Has reached out hold of my heart's loose strings,
And is drawing them up in tune.

I am tired to-night, and I miss you,
And long for you, love, through tears;
And it seems but to-day that I saw you go—
You, who have been gone for years.
And I seem to be newly lonely—
I, who am so much alone;
And the strings of my heart are well in tune,
But they have not the same old tone.

I am tired; and that old sorrow
Sweeps down the bed of my soul,
As a turbulent river might sudden'y break
way from a dam's control.
It beareth a wreck on its bosom,
A wreck with a snow-white sail;
And the hand on my heart strings thrums away,
But they only respond with a wail.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Dream Song

Long years ago, within a distant clime,
Ere Love had touched me with his wand sublime,
I dreamed of one to make my life’s calm May
The panting passion of a summer’s day.
And ever since, in almost sad suspense,
I have been waiting with a soul intense
To greet and take unto myself the beams,
Of her, my star, the lady of my dreams.

O Love, still longed and looked for, come to me,
Be thy far home by mountain, vale, or sea.
My yearning heart may never find its rest
Until thou liest rapt upon my breast.
The wind may bring its perfume from the south,
Is it so sweet as breath from my love’s mouth?
Oh, naught that surely is, and naught that seems
May turn me from the lady of my dreams.

-Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Tryst

In the land of Ra the flaming, by the shores of Nile's slow waters, where the roofs of Thebes were seen,
In the days of yore you loved me, as dark Isis loved Osiris, sister, friend and worshiped queen!
And the pyramid its shadow on our evening trysts would lean.

Oh, the mystery remember of our meeting in the temple, in the aisle of granite, dim and straight,
And the hour when, lights extinguished, and the sacred dances broken, each to each was sudden mate;
Our caresses, burning whispers, ardors that we could not sate.

In the splendor of the ball-room, clinging to me, white and tender, through Time's curtain rift in twain,
Did your ear not catch the anthems, mingling with the crash of cymbals, and the people's answering refrain?
Did you not repeat in rapture that our love awoke again?

Once before, we knew existence, this our bliss is a remembrance, and our love a memory;
Casting off its ancient ashes, flames again our hungry passion, flames and kindles you and me,
As of old, by Nile's slow waters, in that hour of destiny. -By Valery Brusov,
translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky

There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’
And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’
The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’
And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

-Alfred Tennyson
excerpt from Maud

The Robert Plant Conundrum, The Key To Your Wishes

One Thousand Years Ago

Thou and I in spirit land
One thousand years ago,
Watched the waves beat on the strand:
Ceaseless ebb and flow,
Vowed to love and ever love,
One thousand years ago.

Thou and I in greenwood shade
Nine hundred years ago
Heard the wild dove in the glade
Murmuring soft and low,
Vowed to love for evermore
Nine hundred years ago.

Thou and I in yonder star
Eight hundred years ago
Saw strange forms of light afar
In wildest beauty glow.
All things change, but love endures
Now as long ago.

Thou and I in Norman halls
Seven hundred years ago
Heard the warden on the walls
Loud his trumpets blow,
"Ton amors sera tojors "
Seven hundred years ago.

Thou and I in Germany,
Six hundred years ago.
Then I bound the red cross on
True love I must go,
But we part to meet again
In the endless flow."

Thou and I in Syrian plains
Five hundred years ago
Felt the wild fire in our veins
To a fever glow.
All things die, but love lives on
Now as long ago.

Thou and I in shadow land
Four hundred years ago
Saw strange flowers bloom on the strand:
Heard strange breezes blow.
In the ideal love is real
This alone I know.

Thou and I in Italy
Three hundred years ago
Lived in faith and deed for God,
Felt the faggots glow,
Ever new and ever true
Three hundred years ago.

Thou and I on Southern seas
Two hundred years ago
Felt the perfumed even-breeze
Spoke in Spanish by the trees
Had no care or woe.
Life went dreamily in song
Two hundred years ago.

Thou and I mid Northern snows
One hundred years ago
Led an iron silent life
And were glad to flow
Onward into changing death,
One hundred years ago.

Thou and I but yesterday
Met in fashion's show.
Love, did you remember me,
Love of long ago?
Yes: we kept the fond oath sworn
One thousand years ago.

-Charles G. Leland, 1870

I Have Dreamed Of You So Much

I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?

I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

O scales of feeling.

I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.

I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow that
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life .

-Robert Desnos

Written In Cananore

Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.

Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.

Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty's banquet, calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.

My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.

But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,

Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, "It is not well!

Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast not given--I have not known!"

II.

Somewhere, Oh, My Beloved One, the house is standing,
Waiting for thee and me; for our first caresses.
It may be a river-boat, or a wave-washed landing,
The shade of a tree in the jungle's dim recesses,
Some far-off mountain tent, ill-pitched and lonely,
Or the naked vault of the purple heavens only.

But the Place is waiting there; till the Hour shall show it,
And our footsteps, following Fate, find it and know it.

Where we shall worship the greatest of all the Gods in his pomp and power,--
I sometimes think that I shall not care to survive that hour!

-Laurence Hope

Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard -by Bernard d'Agesci, c.1780

To Thee

Draw close the lattice and the door!
Shut out the very stars above!
No other eyes than mine shall pore
Upon this thrilling tale of love.
As, since the book was open last,
Along its dear and sacred text
No other eyes than thine have passed—
Be mine the eyes that trace it next!

Oh! very nobly is it wrought,—
This web of love's divinest light,—
But not to feed my soul with thought,
Hang I upon the book to-night;
I read it only for thy sake,
To every page my lips I press—
The very leaves appear to make
A silken rustle like thy dress.

And so, as each blest page I turn,
I seem, with many a secret thrill,
To touch a soft white hand, and burn
To clasp and kiss it at my will.
Oh! if a fancy be so sweet,
These shadowy fingers touching mine—
How wildly would my pulses beat,
If they COULD feel the beat of thine!

-Henry Timrod

The Paradox

I am the mother of sorrows,
I am the ender of grief;
I am the bud and the blossom,
I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet,
I am thy serf and thy king;
I cure the tears of the heartsick,
When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop;
Swart are my fingers as clay;
Dark is my frown as the midnight,
Fair is my brow as the day.

Battle and war are my minions,
Doing my will as divine;
I am the calmer of passions,
Peace is a nursling of mine.

Speak to me gently or curse me,
Seek me or fly from my sight;
I am thy fool in the morning,
Thou art my slave in the night.

Down to the grave will I take thee,
Out from the noise of the strife;
Then shalt thou see me and know me--
Death, then, no longer, but life.

Then shalt thou sing at my coming,
Kiss me with passionate breath,
Clasp me and smile to have thought me
Aught save the foeman of Death.

Come to me, brother, when weary,
Come when thy lonely heart swells;
I'll guide thy footsteps and lead thee
Down where the Dream Woman dwells.

-Paul Laurence Dunbar

4. The Gallery Of Postcards And Ephemera Clue

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