trobaire.org

a collection of literature from poets, bards, songwriters, and skalds in the SCA

Pray heed, you ladies in the shade

olivier's picture
olivier
Poem (Canso): 

Pray heed, you ladies in the shade:
The fair queen of Atlantia
Comes even now before your hidden glade
To shine her heaven’s light
Upon this mortal lawn;
Cast off the sheet of night,
And greet lovely Dawn.

But if to Twilight’s cloth you keep,
The fair queen of Atlantia
Ever doth grow the higher and more deep
Her sunbeam hue will glow;
And Earth in courtesy
Before her do all bow
To her Majesty.

By Nottingshill calm river-side
The fair queen of Atlantia
With smile and glance warm doth she lovers guide
To meet their hearts’ content:
In flowry field, in quiet wood,
In sweet embrace no force may rent
What love hath deemed good.

Now revel all ye lovers glad,
The fair queen of Atlantia
Will praise you well with love that shall not fade
While happy are you two.
Her heaven-sent white sunlight beam
Will warm your hearts, fill’d with love true:
Better ‘wake than dream.

Documentation / Explanation (Razo): 

This song is based upon Thomas Campion’s “Harke, al you ladies that do sleep” (Song XIX in his Songs and Poems). In the original, Proserpina (queen of night and the underworld) advises lovers to move from the shadow into the moonlight in order to more properly celebrate their love. In this poem, the Queen of Atlantia (acting as Aurora, goddess of the dawn) moves sleepers – those who have not met the full potential of their Neoplatonic souls (see the initial notes for more) – to wake up and celebrate the joy and love that is created by the Queen’s presence and reign.