Flesh

Warm-blooded breast, face of roseate delight,

Child, confirm here is home free of strife.

“When thou wakest, it is thy dear,” and life

Lifetime of your flesh attuned to the light.

Drink the cool water to cool your body,

The red wine to warm you against the cold.

Ply the air with earthy words and bold,

Your words, fed by care thrilling and moody.

The past is dead blues, ancestors provoked,

And blue the fairy realm, ideas and dreams;

Hurt that means no harm; heal that cannot be bought.

Glassy you stare through sea-thought and sky-thought

Grown-ups scatter wildly, their faults and schemes,

Constructions charmed glaziers with skill evoke.

“When thou wakest, it is thy dear “(Act II ii) are Oberon’s words when he casts the spell that will cause Titania to go wild over Bottom. She will fall madly in love with the first thing she sees “be it ounce or cat or bear, Pard or boar with bristled hair, In thy eye that shall appear.” As it happens, an ass. The line contains a rhyming pun that is lost to us, for ‘deer’ in English once meant any animal. (Hence ‘wilderness’, the place of the wild animals.) The thought that love starts with the first thing we see, is the genesis of this sonnet.