Even a Man Who is Pure in Heart by Curt Siodmak

Even a man who is pure in heart,
And says his prayers by night
May become a Wolf when the Wolfbane blooms
And the autumn Moon is bright.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Siodmak

Date: 1941

By: Curt Siodmak (1902-2000)

Wolf by Carina Bissett

I’ll never forget the first moment I saw you
flying across field and fallow
in a wild ride to grandmother’s house—
scarlet cape streaming out behind you,
white hands urging that black steed
to madness, to death, to certain ruin.

Like one of the furies you appeared,
a creature not of this tame green place
but of my land,
where the lamia creep in crags and caves
and the bogey haunt misty borderlands.
A country where ghouls devour the sun
and the whirlwind stirs the fog on a whim.

I watched and waited.
And when I realized nothing pursued you,
not a demon’s furious hunt or a spurned lover.
I smiled
and followed quietly on the forest fringe.

And now as the darkness approaches,
my appetite whetted by the rising moon,
ravenous thoughts consuming me,
forcing me to madness at the lush pain of it all
I raise my voice to the stars
and surrender.

I can’t stand the fierce seduction a moment more—
that thick, dark pelt of sable hair and scarlet hood
hiding the heat of your throbbing pulse
from my ears, eyes and mouth.
I can’t bear the torment, the bliss,
the fear of your savage secrets.

I love you so.
I’ll gobble you up.

From: http://www.thehorrorzine.com/Poetry/Dec2015/CarinaBissett/carina.html

Date: 2015

By: Carina Bissett (19??- )

Third Verse of “The Chess Game of Love” by Bernat Fenollar

Mercury, always ready in his ways,
Painted the board with hues clear and dark:
And made it Time, split into days and nights,
A box to bring the first enclosures.
Crossing it, he divided it into four natures
Of times diverse; and then, in following his guides,
Of each part he made four equal parts.
By dividing in this mode the rest,
The list adds up to four and sixty.

From: http://www.scachsdamor.org/

Date: 1475 (original in Catalan); 201? (translation in English)

By: Bernat Fenollar (1438-1516)

Translated by: Josep Miquel Sobrer (1944-2015)

Second Verse of “The Chess Game of Love” by Narcís Vinyoles

Venus, to exercise her glory,
Desired for her Rooks cautious reserve;
For Knights, disdains of deserved return;
Her Bishops, glances of delightful sight;
For her Lady she took most pleasing beauty;
And her King, following the tale of love,
Was Honor, his life ever in danger;
For faithful Pawns he took courtesy,
All armed and clad with ostentation.

From: http://www.scachsdamor.org/

Date: 1475 (original in Catalan); 201? (translation in English)

By: Narcís Vinyoles (c1442-1517)

Translated by: Josep Miquel Sobrer (1944-2015)

First Verse of “The Chess Game of Love” by Francesc de Castellví i de Vic

As Mars met Venus in a temple,
While having Mercury in their presence,
He devised a game of chess, with new example:
Taking Reason as King without preeminence;
Will for Queen, with great potency;
Thoughts he deems for his Bishops;
His Knights, praises of sweet eloquence;
Rooks are desires to flare up one’s memory;
Pawns are servers striving to Victory.

From: http://www.scachsdamor.org/

Date: 1475 (original in Catalan); 201? (translation in English)

By: Francesc de Castellví i de Vic (14??-1506)

Translated by: Josep Miquel Sobrer (1944-2015)

No Jewel is Worth His Lady by Giacomo da Lentini

Sapphire, nor diamond, nor emerald,
Nor other precious stones past reckoning,
Topaz, nor pearl, nor ruby like a king,
Nor that most virtuous jewel, jasper call’d,
Nor amethyst, nor onyx, nor basalt,
Each counted for a verv marvellous thing,
Is half so excellently gladdening,
As is my lady’s head uncoronall’d.
All beauty by her beauty is made dim;
Like to the stars she is for loftiness;
And with her voice she taketh away grief.
She is fairer than a bud, or than a leaf.
Christ have her well in keeping, of His grace,
And make her holy and beloved, like Him!

From: Rosetti, Dante Gabriel (ed. and transl.), Dante and His Circle: with the Italian Poets Preceding Him. (1100-1200-1300). A Collection of Lyrics, 1887, Roberts Brothers: Boston, p. 201.
(https://archive.org/stream/danteandhiscirc02aliggoog#page/n224/mode/2up)

Date: 13^th century (original in Sicilian dialect); 1861 (translation in English)

By: Giacomo da Lentini (13^th century)

Translated by: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The Viking Terror by Anonymous

Fierce is the wind tonight,
It ploughs up the white hair of the sea
I have no fear that the Viking hosts
Will come over the water to me.

From: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IrelandGenWeb/2002-12/1041140151

Date: 7^th or 8^th century (original in Gaelic); 1949 (translation in English)

By: Anonymous

Translated by: Fred Norris Robinson (1871-1966)

The Apotheosis of Delacroix by Mary Maxwell

The heavens rumble. Clouds are raised by riderless thunder
that halts then storms unreined, snorts and halts again
in sweaty, wide-eyed frenzy. Black, the dog, is barking.
Pissarro has just set up parasol and easel. Cézanne looks up
from under broad-brimmed hat, paint-box burden strapped across
his back. farmers drop jaw and pitchfork and gape
in pious wonder. They behold Apollo’s chariot charge through
sky’s Mozarabic arches; they observe that beyond
those gates (opened by a turbaned servant) a fragrant Odalisque
welcomes the artist in sprawled nakedness. Kohl-rimmed
eyes of the divine tigress promise endless angelic wrestling. But
as mortal and immortal forms do at last commingle,
impassioned and violent, could Death’s voyeurs suppose that
the resplendent Delacroix himself composed this one last
painted ceiling, this celestial arabesque of his own soul’s uprising?

From: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/1999/02/the_apotheosis_of_delacroix.html

Date: 1999

By: Mary Maxwell (19??- )

At Last It’s Come by Sulpicia

At last it’s come, and to be said to hide this kind of love
would shame me more than rumors that I’d laid it bare.
Won over by the pleading of my Muse, Cytherea
delivered him to me. She placed him in my arms.
Venus has fulfilled what she promised: Let my joys be told
by one who is said to have no joy of her own.
I would hate to keep what I’ve written under seal where none
could read me sooner than my lover, for pleasure
Likes a little infamy; discretion is nothing but a tedious pose.
Let it be known I have found a fitting partner.

From: Rayor, Diane J. and Batstone, William W. (eds.), Latin Lyric and Elegaic Poetry: An Anthology of New Translations, 1995, Routledge: New York, p. 84.

Date: 1^st century BCE (original in Latin); 1994 (translation in English)

By: Sulpicia (1^st century BCE)

Translated by: Mary Maxwell (19??- )

A Nightingale Migrates by Thomas Ironmonger

Heat – where the river swells and flaps
like a flock of white birds taking flight.
Red – where the clouds with thunder
crack, and the sky’s cool gin mixes into the night.
Here – as drunken fruits fall and explode into
the furrowed orchard aisles as the dark forest crows inside
two slight lungs drink breath
to load the songs they will carry for miles; over the
hedgerows, over the stiles; over
the bright brown African roads.

From: http://cargocollective.com/nightingalepoetry/A-Nightingale-Migrates

Date: 2013

By: Thomas Ironmonger (19??- )