Member-only story
poetry
She steps down to the maiden’s chamber
Alas, she awaits: the adytum
Fair game in shame but not in plunder
While Regent kings in galleys able
And Argonauts upon oceans sail
And those who tread the lilted plane
By fields of fire or drenching rain
Perplex at wisdom’s failed fortunes
The sibyl awaits their pleasured tortures
Performs the arts ‘ready prophesized
No force majeure can freely sympathize
She awaits her Lord in that jilted chamber
Her hair of garlands and sweetened scents
Betwixt the daemons heaven-sent
And tempted from her three-prong ledge
By mice nor men, nor feminine
The sacrificial lamb be chill, be calm
Our queen of queens is chaste; embalm’d
From the Castalian stream her rhyme serene
To test the great men who bathe in dreams
Then send them off — “Now depart,” she screams
At earth’s center a thousand years
Blessed by the gods to wrest men’s fears
By her authority and noble intention
Pytho be always our guiding star
Dodona’s sacred oak,
Surely a trek too far
For in Zeus’s house no lyre plays
Sweet Apollo her far-shooter strays
From years to months, from months to days
Her histories are foretold on the Sacred Way
