In Maiden Meditation, Fancy-Free

There is something in the air of a breezy, shimmery autumn day—overcast but not dour, cool but not chill—that always brings to my mind images from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.  Is it the memory of school days, of afternoons on a woolen blanket spread beneath the dogwoods on my neighbor’s hill with a new literature book propped across my knees?  There would be a basket supplied with apples and a thermos of hot tea at my side, perhaps my sister close at hand poring over a geography lesson. And I would lean my head against the trunk with a dreamy gaze that swept the rooftops and pines and simply enjoy the feeling evoked by such phrases as “the fairest of all Christian knights” and “a bow-shot from her bower eaves”.  Such ‘study’ was never a chore to me, but an endless vista of enchantment.

And, of course, there was the merry-making with girlfriends, the inexhaustible delights of ‘dress-up’ which always seemed to take a medieval slant this time of year.  Arraying ourselves in all manner of gorgeous finery—from capes easily sewn for just such occasions to costumes and cast-off bridesmaid dresses of a 1970’s vintage (strikingly Middle Ages!)—we’d promenade at our imaginary balls and ply our arts upon unseen suitors. 

Thinking of those happy days and the dear friends who shared them…and you know who you are…Here’s a toast of elven wine to those wonderful companions in ‘moon-struck madness’…

For with all the joy in the world they lived there together: the most famous knights in Christendom, and the loveliest ladies that ever lived, and the comeliest king that ever held court.  For this fair people was in its youth, the happiest under Heaven; their king the greatest on earth; it would be hard now to name so brave a hero in all the land.  The Pearl Poet

And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.  Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

 
I’ve been listening to Loreena McKennit’s hauntingly gorgeous The Lady of Shalott the past few days…its never lost a shred of its original allure…

 A bit off the subject, but I can’t help making reference to her version of The Highwayman as well…or, for that matter, Seeds of Love.

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie!