Heart and mind

SAID the Lion to the Lioness-'When you are amber dust,-

No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun

(No liking but all lust)-

Remember still the flowering of the amber blood and bone,

The rippling of bright muscles like a sea,

Remember the rose-prickles of bright paws

Though the fire of that sun the heart and the moon-cold bone are one.'

Said the Skeleton lying upon the sands of Time-

'The great gold planet that is the mourning heat of the Sun

Is greater than all gold, more powerful

Than the tawny body of a Lion that fire consumes

Like all that grows or leaps...so is the heart

More powerful than all dust. Once I was Hercules

Or Samson, strong as the pillars of the seas:

But the flames of the heart consumed me, and the mind

Is but a foolish wind.'

Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone,

And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,

Remember only this of our hopeless love

That never till Time is done

Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one.'

by Edith Sitwell

© Ayesha NuRa Ayanfe