Ode to a Pair of New Socks

The morning wakes, and my dreamy eyes recall

My night, as though I were still asleep:

I gamboled ‘oer a polished hall

Of an oaken castle keep,

Thy fabric - steadfast - ever true

About my feet so rapt.

Oh, it only ever could be you

By Morpheus so trapped;

Mine eyes, mine ears, my senses all

Are every one night-capped.

*

O, with thee, I twirled! I sashayed

On gleaming floors of gold and green!

Citrine bamboo and sapphire jade

mirror’d a magic Elven scene!

Newton and I, hand in hand, floated

Unstoppable, strands of silk were we,

As if a conjured breeze, to us devoted,

Care less of gravity,

Like the subtle moon who wooed the tide

To dance her symmetry.

*

Woe to those born not even to forget

The steps they coulds’t never learn;

Wall to wall, doomed to rugs, and to carpet

Rough buds to peel away and spurn.

A youth so wasted, but for the spectre-thin veil

Twixt joyous freedom heaven sent

And leaden footsteps, ponderous and pale.

Alas! Alack! They know not what it meant

To don a gossamer pair and jet,

Free of fancy, over a waxen, wooden vale!

*

Away! I doff this cuff’ed, imprisoned flight

Of the duller senses, my hapless Art waning,

And imagine I soar to your unconquered height,

Encumbered not by wit constraining.

Hap’ly, I turn my blockhead mind aside

For Poesy, knowing she might come

Sit with me awhile; my muse is she and may confide

Her secret dreams to me. Although I once was dumb,

My voice, by her imbued, and ripe with might,

It shouts: Aha! I have but only Time remaining!

*

Upon stone and slate and splintered beech

Parquetted and oiled, Chronos, to airy thinness beat

You, ‘til your soles, woebegone and holey, each

Scraped and scuffed, succumbed to raw defeat.

But joyous bells will yet ring - another year will pass.

Before the sun, I will spring awake

On a child’s most belov’ed Mass;

I’ll bend an ear and squeeze and shake!

Lo! But Soft! You magic into my reach,

No sooner opened than pulled on my eager feet.

*

Even now, Bacchus’ scales, tipped by revelry

Through times of yore almost forgot,

Matter weighless in compare; in your reverie

I am smitten still, like Eros I’m besot.

Mighty Cupid shot me when I was but a child;

With pierc’ed heart, and still my catch,

Each time we meet anew, untamed and wild,

You are my perfect match.

Through divine or arcane devilry,

My love for you is wrought.