Listler’s Paradise

I met a man below a hill, where the road unwinding paused

‘Round a poplar grove and spring, removed from worldly laws

There he sat with tranquil brow, and offered of his bread and wine

And he told me of the place he left, which he hoped again to find

In his eye there lay a land, so splendorous I would not conceal

How bright and gleaming was the port, where ships of starry cargo wheeled

Where a thousand silver suns set sail, and one might buy ten thousand more

Where sailors’ songs gilded the waves, taming siren hearts and storms

He told me how numerous cities rose, commanding ‘mongst the diamond peaks

And by lofty bridges intertwined, o’er crags and crystals in the deeps

Where the blooms of Shangri’La did wax, as moons to pluck on breathless nights

Their glow to rival pristine snow, their perfume of one hundred sighs

He told me how gold rose of the earth, a sea of flaxen stems so vast

Sleipnir’s kin did rise and roam, never to reach its final tracts

Where in ivory towers mounted treasures, bold and lonely upon the plains

Where one might trade in divers riches, to have one priceless marvel tame

And over all this wondrous land, whose sanctuary he sought once more

Came dawns in every season equal, by the wing of phoenix borne

With sapphire rains and pearled mists, and amber drops of evening sun

With snows of lace and lapis skies, and still before these jewels would run

Velvet streaks of briefest twilight, and shadows to catch on nets of twine

Where midnight’s silky threads would cling, to complete the vast array so fine

That any might lift and don its beauty, that any might in the land revel

In its enchantment and in its mystery, and in its otherworldly knell.

Elizabeth Cook

2014