The Lover Disputes A Journey

My ladyes a-gone to hell
For all that I could say her no,
That summer winds there wax too hot
She swore she were afire to go

“Where better”, sings she “for a ghost
“Than phantom manses for to dwell?”
I told her that her sprite was pale
And that her skin’d be burnt by hell.

I told her that she needed light
Cast by the moon and not the fire
The dampness on the curtain wall
The skull, the tongue and the desire…

She scorned my bones – she spurned my song –
She built her an enchanted craft
Then cast out on the flamed lagoon
Sailed as it blazed from prow to aft

I watch it like a burgeoning star
On its diminished brightening way –
I feel the night air bid me stay –
I’ll follow it yet, howsoe’er far.