With thanks for astrological counsel.

With thanks for astrological counsel.

‘Mi ritrovai nel una selva oscura

Che la diritta vie era smarrita.’

(Inferno 1, 2-3)

I thank you now, most grave astrologers,

Subtle interpreters of fiery zones,

Heraldic Babylonian blazonings,

Hieratic hieroglyphs painted on high,

Conundrums and chimeras in the skies,

Descried from crumbling desert ziggurats.

I thank you for your pains and courtesy,

For riddling from the stars my destiny,

And setting out with strict exactitude

Wise counsels and most excellent advice,

Deeper than weird Cumaean sybil gave,

(Shrunk to a midget in her earthen flask)

Or Delphic oracle did once impart

To those who mounted to Apollo’s shrine,

Engraved with the encrypted Epsilon,

Drank the chill waters of the Pierian spring

And, purified with fasting, heard his voice

Emerge from the abyss the witch bestrode,

Drunk with the sulphurous vapours of the God.

Receive my gratitude – a virtue once,

Through now despised as weakness by the world –

For warning me of dangers that beset

Those trapped, bewildered, in the forest gloom

Of this our life, menaced by toils and snares,

Cruel pitfalls, cunning nets, and ravenous beasts,

Or led astray by livid will o’ wisps,

Flickering faery lights of noxious swamps,

Into some grimpen or Serbonian bog

Where armies whole have perished in their pride,

Unhouseled, while sibilant spirits lure

Unwary travelers to untimely death,

For bloodless shades are envious of the living.

So rest assured; these counsels I shall take,

Grapple them to myself with grips of steel,

Inscribe them fast upon my memory,

And like those voyagers to unknown shores,

To jungles, icy wastes or perilous seas

I read of as a boy, who stirred my soul –

When, sprawled wild winter nights before the fire,

Or summer days, in a walled garden’s shade,

Drowsed with the indolence of ripening fruit,

And lulled by lazy buzzing of our bees

I wandered with them, timeless, in my book –

Hold firm before me that bright Northern star

Which steadfast shines above the snowy Pole

And guides the storm-tossed seaman from afar.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM