Poetry of the Holy Empire
The literature of the Holy Empire of Alasdair I Frosticus is particularly well known for its poetry. Some examples follow
The Imperial Epic
The greatest Imperial Poet is the Chacan Guillermo B. Yeatses, whose Imperial Epic is considered a particular landmark. This poem is said to almost perfectly capture the dream-like essence of the Holy Empire.
THE IMPERIAL EPIC
By Guillermo B. Yeatses
The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the starlit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood,
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
Ours is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed ‘cross dreams and come
To the holy city of Alasdairopolis.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Imperial goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of the Holy Empire
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The darkness drops again. And know I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
EASTER, WORLD CUP 34
More recently, Yeatses’ official commemorative poem for World Cup 34 was said to a magnificent treatment of what it means to be a football supporter, and the role of the Dreamed Realm in interacting with Ordinary Reality football supporters.
EASTER, WORLD CUP 34
By Guillermo B. Yeatses
I HAVE watched them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Ordinary Reality houses.
I have heard with a nod of the head
Their polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and watched
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that Ordinary Reality
Is a place where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly by football:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant support of Sel Appa,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
Her team reached qualification?
This man had kept a school
And supported Wentland's Swifts;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into Krytenia's world;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, Dazza Dallas-lusting lout.
He had drooled and thought wrong
To women who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has supported his team
Through the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly by football:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted through ninety minutes
To support their football team.
The stadium down the road.
The coach, the players that range
From pitch to tumbling pitch,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the team
Changes minute by minute;
A hoofed ball slides down the line,
And a winger crosses the ball;
The long-legged forward dives,
And the ref then signals the goal;
Minute by minute they live:
The ball's in the midst of it all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is the Empire's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but dreams;
Were they needless dreams after all?
For supporters may keep faith
Even if a loss is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed of their team;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they dreamed?
I write it out in a verse -
And Squornshelous and Zwangzug
Now and in time to be,
Wherever team kits are worn,
Are changed, changed utterly by football
A terrible beauty is born
Poetry of the Prince Imperial
But the Holy Empire’s poetry is not limited to the mighty works of Yeatses….
Just about the only surviving historical record relating to the first phase of the Holy Empire's contact with physical reality (other than the World Cup) regards the victory of the Prince Imperial in an international poetry competition. The original report follows:
THE HOLY EMPIRE TIMES
PRINCE IMPERIAL WINS INTERNATIONAL POETRY COMPETITION!
Basileus said to be proud.
By Theodore Ducaso, Court Correspondent, Alasdairopolis
The Prince Imperial has won the People's Republic of Love Poetry's poetry competition with a love sonnet rather unimaginatively titled Love Sonnet:
I cannot live, though thou might love me not,
Without the sight of thy bright sun-cast face.
And all the crimes of man are long forgot
When I am bound within thy shining grace.
Why dost thou spurn my freely offered hand
And cast aside my heart as if w'out care
When we together might yet see all lands
United as if you shone everywhere.
Without you all is darkness without light
Come with me then, that we might shine anew,
Emboldened by your sun that stands so bright
And bid all other lovers sweet adieu.
Illume my path with love that I might know
The ways that I might see thy beauty grow.
"I don't care if it is the worst title for a sonnet since Shakespeare was naming his sonnets 'XIV' and 'LIII', I'm still happy to have won the competition" said the Prince. "Now maybe I can get my beloved Zoe Carbonopsina to notice me!"
At this point, the Prince threatened to burst into song, and the press conference was abrubtly terminated by a rioting press who remembered all too well the Prince's renditions of his less impressive past efforts such as I love her like a cute little lovelorn puppy would, Luvvie-wuvvie-fuvvie, and You make me go all soft and gooey inside.
The Basileus is said to be proud of his nephew, and hopes that his victory in the competition will temporarily put a halt to the Prince's moping about over his unrequited affections.
OOC disclaimer: I openly acknowledge that the Guillermo B.Yeatses poems are adapted from the works of William Butler Yeats, and I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. The Imperial Epic is a (lightly-edited) conflation of parts of Byzantium, Sailing to Byzantium and The Second Coming. Easter, World Cup 34 is a perhaps misguided attempts to edit Easter, 1916 into a work about football supporters. The Love Sonnet of the Prince Imperial is entirely original.
