They were the first to colonise the new moon, with its clean atmosphere – so safe they let the children off the pod within hours of landing. The future looked bright for all the refugees, until the moment when, with specially modified eyes, they saw that the distant mountains had begun to breathe and were slowly turning to look straight at them…
Anointed and joyful, he shuffled forwards into the light of the beautiful unknown, the thick black poison on his lips, on his face, and – with one sharp tear from the priest’s needle – in his veins too.
Everything he believed was coming true, and in only a heartbeat he would meet the sun, moon and stars of his imagining…
It was the spring of 1523 and the Kingdom blossomed. The little boy emerged from a year of solitude in the forest, to be clothed by his ladies-in-waiting, blessed by the alchemists, revered by his courtiers, and greeted by thousands from all across his land. His sharp eyes now were like buds, his senses keen. The warmth of his people and the new day spread across his chest and into his beating heart.
MAIOR HERCULES – love has the strength of Hercules
AMICITIE EFFIGIES – true friendship never changes
EO MAGIS CALIGAT – Man searches in vain to understand the mystery of God
HEI MIHI QUOD VIDI – tears can move the strongest will
NON INVICTO RECEDO – courage in adversity
ULCHRITUD FOEMINEA – beauty is only skin deep
DIES ET INGENIUM – experience tames the excesses of youth
TUTISSIMA COMES – let wisdom be the guide of our travel through life
DOCTRINA – learning
DOLUS – deceit
Wrap my heart with thorns
In the woods so dark and deep
So I do not grow old
As the years pass by in sleep
Out of the tangled night
I pray you’ll come for me
All fire and sword, in armour, love
To set my tired heart free
But if my love is lost
And you find my heart not pure
Return me gently to the thorns
So I may slumber more
Upon the barren earth and upon the stagnant sea
And over rivers running red with ageless misery,
And all amongst the ruined trees
And in the poison storm
The dancing god breathes new green life into a new green form.
The final breath of every man is swallowed up in leaf and bud –
Lords; ladies; heroes; fools – their guilt and shame returned to mud
And out upon a new green day, with dancing feet and brightening eyes
The laughing god surveys the scene –
Set with silence and with sighs –
And makes his promise to the dawn,
His words so fresh, the earth so pure,
The seed of hope lies dormant yet…
Just as so many years before
The poor, the meek, the restless folk
Dance and pray and beg to find
A way to go, a place for hope,
Where skies are clear and life is kind.
They search in vain, they weep and joke
‘Til swept aside by fools entwined
Who never looked, nor ever spoke
– The blind that lead the blind.
The crows are in the wood on this cold black diamond night,
While underneath the world the sky is burning bright,
But I have torn the dark and I have scorn’d the light,
And I have hardened up my heart and set the birds to flight
An accident of fate, with flesh and blood sublime,
Mysterious as death, and perfect in my prime,
My sugared almond mouth with honey-scented rhyme
Has spoken truth and snapp’d my wings, and I am out of time
So fill my eyes with gold and fill my mouth with snow,
Fill my dreams with fire and see my body glow,
And all the crowd laughs with me, though they shall never know
The solace of the shadows – the place I seek to go
The loves that I did burn for, and the hate that made me seethe
All vanish in a whisper as I stand and stare and breathe
Where once I chased the storms – yet now I only grieve
For fleeting hearts warm’d by the fire, which now must take their leave…
And the crows are in the wood on this cold black diamond night,
While underneath this world, the sky still burns so bright
We stood on top of the World
Under the joyful sky,
In thunder and rain and heartache and pain
And the Ship of Fools sailed by…
They say Heaven’s high above us
And Hell’s not far below
And in the fields that lie between
We know not where to go
