[Newspoetry] on a saying of Congreve, now a trite of hackney

[DL Emerick]

Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
William Congreve: The Mourning Bride, act iii (1697).

Perceptive was that Congreve, per septic,

of the way that sewers run under Heaven,

hauling the shit away, toilets have flows,

nor back-up to pollute, a Heaven-scent,

for messengers of gods smell as much sweet,

when swift are there tongues to our deceit,

when they bring us words of a man's descent,

into the brigs of darkness, holding on roses,

counting all days of eternity a mere seven,

as we find the fiends of Elysium dyspeptic.

 

What is neither in Heaven nor in Hell held,

Is the stuff which neither could withstand,

For love that has into its corruptions come,

Can not be stayed in chains of woe or bliss.

Inversion is a two-faced mirror spinning,

Showing us our goodness by our sinning.

Love is a hatred waiting to find all amiss,

Though some will blithely say "Only some

Will ever turn against that object in hand",

They grasp not how an Eternity is spelled.

 

An inventory routine declares and reveals

What is present, one time against another,

And never shows what never was there,

Could not have been there, in any such a place,

An impossible thing between either and or.

Such is a passion whose wealth makes poor

All who fall into its worshipping its grace,

As though none had warned them "Beware,

When you enter, you leave father, mother,

All kinship behind you, bereft of their wills."

 

It is not the fire of love's desire turned hot,

As that flows over-heated in mad passion,

That any man like Icarus ever learns to fear,

For the warmth is wonderful at its height,

When highest in the sky you are winging,

When your heart overflows in glad singing,

But the long journey down again at night,

When the loved heart cools and loses its cheer,

As wax-wings formed hot go out of fashion,

Causing you to fall to earth, spent and shot.

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