Renaissance

Faire Vanity's Conceits - V

Dead things -- undying, with an eldrich life
That makes a sport of petty human span --
They are among us. Dead dreams -- alive again!
Look you -- the poor wretch, homeless, on the road
Struck down by careless death, not even known
By name -- now one among the faceless dead
That are returning. And there -- the workman
From all work released, whose hands repeat
Unceasingly the motions of his craft.
Or there -- the goodwife herds her little brood
Again, all counted and accounted for;
And there the merchant counts his gold and sells
His soul again. They all return.
And those who pranced upon the stage of life
In finery of every sort, and pomp,
And circumstances of the chosen few --
They come again to make their gaudy show.
Aye -- with them come the gentle and the good,
The cunning, and the cony-catcher sort,
The gay, the grave, the scholar and the courtly
Non-pariel, the maiden coy, the bold
Gallant. They prance again, or caper, stroll
Or whirl in giddy eddies of delight.
We walk among them, moving in the space
Between the worlds, a graceful pagenatry
Of light and shadow, color, tint and hue,
Of shape and silhouette merging anew
With Life. The hopes and fears of common men,
The fancies of the great, the fate-betrayed
Bedeviled and the Self-begot are here
To live again. Among us, moving, merging
Life and long dead dreams that never die,
They are within us.