Phoenix Soul: An elegy composed upon the death of L. S.

"Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you and hold in loves soft bands"
	-Edmund Spenser (1552 - 1599), Sonnet I, Verses 1 - 3

I

It did befall, when thou wert like a storm,
The greatest breath of Orc, fresh freedom’s fount,
That might a dungeon rend full to grey dust,
I wist thy word, that cast away my chains
Of heavy hurt, ybound about my heart.
On fiery wings, didst thou above me fly,
And lit the way afore me to fresh days.
Thy feathers fell, and brent the thorny boughs,
That stung mine eyes, in Peril’s darkling holt.
A mighty sun wert thou, full bright in dawn.

II

Yet still these eyes could not behold the bane,
That like a winter blast against thee rose.
I saw but light about me whilst unseen,
Thy sinews all were reaved of flight and fire,
Till Woe’s harbinger spake his evil noise.
I cursed the luring fount, thee wherefrom thought
That pleasance flowed, bore subtle Loki’s gin.
The wand of Dole me sharply taught: drink not!
But ne’er I stintèd to thee call: arise!
For no rough thorn, I’d weened, could break thy voice.

III

Yet dread came to thee in thy deadly wounds.
Some falsely wrote upon thy skin forworn,
The writs of shame; ywrit of cowards’ hands.
I heard them mock thy name and break the life,
That was yheld in all thy gentle bones.
I thee beheld upon a rood, in blooming spring,
Ytorn of harvest rains, as leaden tears,
That dealt another bane upon my head!
And when th’ old sting, let fly the dying smoke,
My Balder’s heart, I wist, was reapèd rough.

Copyright 2002 Sir Percival


Explanations:

Phoenix (title): A mythical bird of Near Eastern legend whose wings 
and body were constantly burning.  The phoenix eventually dove into 
the ground and died (after a life of several hundred years), but a 
new phoenix emerged out of the flames.  In time, the phoenix became 
a symbol of freedom and resurrection.

Orc (line 2): Not in fact a reference to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, 
but rather an allusion to an entity in the philosophy and spirituality 
of the English poet William Blake.  Orc was a personification of the 
heroic and fiery spirit of social revolution.

That...dust (line 3): An allusion to a line from William Blake’s A 
Song Of Liberty: "France, rend down thy dungeon!", referring to the 
Fall of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789.

wist (line 4): understood; the preterit form of the archaic verb ‘to 
wit’, which means ‘to understand, comprehend’.

word (line 4): teachings

ybound (line 5): bound; in Middle English, past participles of one or 
two syllables, which did not begin with a vowel, had the prefix y-

afore (line 7): in front of

brent (line 8): burnt (archaic form)

darkling (line 9): in the darkness

holt (line 9): copse, wood, forest

bane (line 11): poison

blast (line 12): gust

evil (line 15): We would probably say ‘bad’, ‘ill’ or ‘unhappy’

noise (line 15): rumours, hearsay

thee...thought (line 16): It seemed to you.  There were originally two 
verbs in Old English: þencan (pronounced ‘thenkan’) ‘to think’ and 
þyncan (pronounced ‘thünkan’) ‘to seem’.  Both ultimately fell 
together into our verb ‘to think’ because Middle English speakers 
confused them. However, sometimes the verb was used instransitively 
(i.e. in third person singular) with the object case of a pronoun to 
mean: "It seems to *insert pronoun here* that...".  This is origin of 
the archaic ‘methinks’.  Normally, the two words are either put 
together as ‘methinks’ or they are next to each other. I needed to 
separate them with the word "wherefrom" in order to maintain iambic 
metre.

pleasance (line 17): pleasure

Loki (line 17): The trickster deity from Norse Mythology.  Legend 
states that when Ragnarok comes to pass, Loki will murder his brother 
Balder and betray the gods of Asgard to their enemies, the frost 
giants.

gin (line 17): trick

wand (line 18): a school teacher’s rod (no longer in use)

Dole (line 18): sorrow

stinted (line 19): ceased

weened (line 20): believed, thought

forworn (line 22): worn out

ywrit (line 23): written

yheld (line 25): held

rood (line 27): cross

Balder (line 30): A deity from Norse mythology who is murdered by his 
brother Loki.