Threnody by TJ Cheen Lyrics
From the serried grave I wondered down
The strewing path of foot-pressed undergrass
Whose cloying skirt poked from the glade-green gown,
And spoke of feet which once had come to pass
Behind me sank the shrill, white April sun
And drew with it the memory of my woe;
The thoughts of they imprisoned in the dumb
And earthy trench where they were neatly stowed
Down braying hill and into puddled gully
Whose channels wеre new-girt by infant Spring
I strove and strollеd and did the young growth sully
Unmindful of to whence it might me bring
The rasping leg of seven-span cicadas
Coccooned me in a sound-bewoven sheet
Inuring me to birds in their dumb laughter
And shrouding me in a voluble peace
Sloe-black was this peace, and armoured
Clad as if in greaves of steel
In some great urn I found me cornered
By the wax of centuries sealed
Deadened to my outer sight
I was to inner sense repaired
And forced onto the darkened flights
Of that curling marble stair
Which walks us down to darkness
And brings us clean abreast
Of stretching, churning starkness
By reason’s light unblessed
Before me ground did open
And dirt spill in the ditch
Whose reach was downwards groping
And blackened out to pitch
Here before me
Nothing sat
No clear whereat
And no rose dawning
Until a smarting glitter
Beflamed my corner eye,;
The echo of a twitter,
The dot upon an “i”
It glimmered happily
And sang as if a bone
But by some harmony
I found ‘twas not alone
Indeed, the sowing thread of lights
Was strung across the near and far;
A woven splendour, grave delight
A shining vein and gutter of stars
These winking planets rise with eve
And rage against the death of day;
In their light there’s no sense to grieve
For sun is merely tucked away
And this great column stood aloft before me
Across a lucent, bellying glass-dark lake;
And on the other shore new light was dawning
Rosy fingers clawing now to break
The dearth of night and set the morning sailing
Across the glossy water of the creek
Towards me, where it found me tired of wailing
And in the sunlit pastures life to seek
In this dim window of the new-born daylight
The cicada-serenade yet to begin,
I heard the dawdling song of the Nightingale
Whose funeral song crossed night on day’s young wind
To the serried grave I backward snaked
Up strewing path of foot-pressed undergrass
Whose cloying skirt poked from the glade-green cape,
And spoke of feet which once had come to pass
The strewing path of foot-pressed undergrass
Whose cloying skirt poked from the glade-green gown,
And spoke of feet which once had come to pass
Behind me sank the shrill, white April sun
And drew with it the memory of my woe;
The thoughts of they imprisoned in the dumb
And earthy trench where they were neatly stowed
Down braying hill and into puddled gully
Whose channels wеre new-girt by infant Spring
I strove and strollеd and did the young growth sully
Unmindful of to whence it might me bring
The rasping leg of seven-span cicadas
Coccooned me in a sound-bewoven sheet
Inuring me to birds in their dumb laughter
And shrouding me in a voluble peace
Sloe-black was this peace, and armoured
Clad as if in greaves of steel
In some great urn I found me cornered
By the wax of centuries sealed
Deadened to my outer sight
I was to inner sense repaired
And forced onto the darkened flights
Of that curling marble stair
Which walks us down to darkness
And brings us clean abreast
Of stretching, churning starkness
By reason’s light unblessed
Before me ground did open
And dirt spill in the ditch
Whose reach was downwards groping
And blackened out to pitch
Here before me
Nothing sat
No clear whereat
And no rose dawning
Until a smarting glitter
Beflamed my corner eye,;
The echo of a twitter,
The dot upon an “i”
It glimmered happily
And sang as if a bone
But by some harmony
I found ‘twas not alone
Indeed, the sowing thread of lights
Was strung across the near and far;
A woven splendour, grave delight
A shining vein and gutter of stars
These winking planets rise with eve
And rage against the death of day;
In their light there’s no sense to grieve
For sun is merely tucked away
And this great column stood aloft before me
Across a lucent, bellying glass-dark lake;
And on the other shore new light was dawning
Rosy fingers clawing now to break
The dearth of night and set the morning sailing
Across the glossy water of the creek
Towards me, where it found me tired of wailing
And in the sunlit pastures life to seek
In this dim window of the new-born daylight
The cicada-serenade yet to begin,
I heard the dawdling song of the Nightingale
Whose funeral song crossed night on day’s young wind
To the serried grave I backward snaked
Up strewing path of foot-pressed undergrass
Whose cloying skirt poked from the glade-green cape,
And spoke of feet which once had come to pass