The Sleeping Beauty by Dawn Pisturino

 

Sleeping Beauty by John Collier, 1921

The Sleeping Beauty

Dedicated to my daughter, Ariel Pisturino

Lying there in sweet repose,

Lips as red as any rose,

The Sleeping Beauty rests her head

Upon a gold and velvet bed;

Golden tresses fair displayed

Around the shoulders softly laid,

Be-decked in sequined, jeweled dress,

Her slender hands across her breast.

Fair Maid! -- What evil cast you here

To sleep a full one hundred year

Until a Prince with noble pride

Into the castle court should ride

And climb the steeply winding stair

To find a maid with golden hair

Lying on a couch asleep,

Lost in dreaming long and deep,

And drop upon the tender lips

A kiss so pure the magic slips.

And, lo! -- the eyelids flutter wide

And see a vision at her side:

A handsome Prince so near and nigh,

The maiden cannot help but sigh

And stretch out pleading hands to him

Who kissed her softly on a whim,

And thanking him with grateful smile,

Requests of him to stay a while.

The Prince proves better than a guest

And presses her against his breast;

Then carries her, swift as the wind,

Upon his horse across the land

To marble castle rising high

Against the purple morning sky.

And when she curtsies to the King,

The Queen presents her with a ring

And crown of jewels sparkling white --

Gifts of softly glowing light --

That bind her to her Prince's life:

No more a maid! -- but now, his wife!

Dawn Pisturino

April 25, 1987/October 20, 2020

Copyright 1987-2020 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

 

Poems by William Wordsworth

 

 

Lines Written in Early Spring

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure; --
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
(1798)

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

My heart leaps up when I behold
       A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
       Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
       I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(1802)

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
in vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(1804)

BIO: (1770-1850) William Wordsworth was a friend of Coleridge and collaborated on a collection of poems, Lyrical Ballads (1798), which marked the beginning of the new Romantic period. He became England's poet laureate in 1843.

I Remember You

by Dawn Pisturino

 

I remember you:

Those violet eyes that any girl would envy;

The full lips curled into a boyish smile;

The long, tapered fingers and moist, warm hands.

Yes, I remember you,

For I loved you with all the romance

Of girlish dreams,

And whiled away the hours thinking only of you.

I lived for the simple touch of your hand

And sighed for a single kiss from your lips

And died for a kindly smile in those eyes,

O foolish dreamer that I was!

But my dream was more real to me than life itself,

And I hungered to wed dream to reality.

If you ever knew - or dared to know - my love for you,

It was not apparent in the course of time,

And O! how I wept the bitter tears of unrequited love --

That Great Enemy of adolescence which betrays the heart so well!

Yes, I remember you;

If you would but remember me as a simple child,

I would be happy.

 

July 29, 1986

"Rosemary for Remembrance"

 

BIO:  Dawn Pisturino's poems, limericks, short stories, and articles have appeared in/on Danse Macabre du Jour, Brooklyn Voice, Underneath the Juniper Tree, Working Writer, and several newspapers and anthologies. She currently resides in Arizona.



JUNE

by James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June?
   Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
   And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
   An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
   Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
   Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
   The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
   To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
   Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
   With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, –
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? 

Now is the high tide of the year,
   And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back, with a ripply cheer,
   Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
’T is enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
   That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack,
   We could guess it all by yon heifer’s lowing, –
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
   Tells all in his lusty crowing!

BIO: Born in 1819, James Russell Lowell became a member of the Fireside Poets, a New England group of Romantic poets whose popularity rivaled the great British poets of the era. In 1857, he was appointed editor of The Atlantic Monthly. He used his poetry to promote abolitionism and social reform. Lowell died in 1891.

Artwork: "Flaming June" by Sir Frederic Leighton, 1895.

TO THE BAT

by Ann Radcliffe

From haunt of man, from day's obtrusive glare,

Thou shroud'st thee in the ruin's ivy'd tow'r,

Or in some shadowy glen's romantic bow'r,

Where wizard forms their mystic charms prepare,

Where Horror lurks, and ever-boding Care!

But, at the sweet and silent ev'ning hour,

When clos'd in sleep is ev'ry languid flow'r,

Thou lov'st to sport upon the twilight air,

Mocking the eye, that would thy course pursue,

In many a wanton round, elastic, gay,

Thou flitt'st athwart the pensive wand'rer's way,

As his lone footsteps print the mountain-dew.

From Indian isles thou com'st, with Summer's car,

Twilight thy love -- thy guide her beaming star!

From The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794.



SONNET

Now the bat circles on the breeze of eve,

That creeps, in shudd'ring sits, along the wave,

And trembles 'mid the woods, and through the cave

Whose lonely sighs the wanderer deceive;

For oft, when melancholy charms his mind,

He thinks the Spirit of the rock he hears,

Nor listens, but with sweetly-thrilling fears,

To the low, mystic murmurs of the wind!

Now the bat circles, and the twilight dew

Falls silent round, and, o'er the mountain-cliff,

The gleaming wave and far-discover'd skiff,

Spreads the grey veil of soft, harmonious hue.

So falls o'er Grief the dew of pity's tear

Dimming her lonely visions of despair.

From The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794

                      --Oft I hear,

Upon the silence of the midnight air,

Celestial voices swell in holy chorus

That bears the soul to heaven!

From The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794

TO AUTUMN

Sweet Autumn! how the melancholy grace

Steals on my heart, as through these shades I wind!

Sooth'd by thy breathing sigh, I fondly trace

Each lonely image of the pensive mind!

Lov'd scenes, lov'd friends -- long lost! around me rise,

And wake the melting thought, the tender tear!

That tear, that thought, which more than mirth I prize --

Sweet as the gradual tint that paints thy year!

Thy farewell smile, with fond regret, I view,

Thy beaming lights, soft gliding o'er the woods;

Thy distant landscape, touch'd with yellow hue,

While falls the lengthen'd gleam; thy winding floods,

Now veil'd in shade, save where the skiff's white sails

Swell to the breeze, and catch thy streaming ray.

But now, e'en now! -- the partial vision fails,

And the wave smiles, as sweeps the cloud away!

Emblem of life! -- Thus checquer'd is its plan,

Thus joy succeeds to grief -- thus smiles the varied man!

From The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794

BIO: Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), known as the Mistress of the Gothic Novel, wove an effective blend of psychological fear and poetry into her stories, profoundly affecting the writings of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.