Lyr Add: Dark Angel (sound poem set to music)

Subject: Dark Angel (sound poem set to music)
From: GUEST,Jim Clark..London.England
Date: 02 Apr 03 - 01:52 AM

Born in Kent,Lionel Johnson 1867 - 1902 was educated at Oxford in the classics, and afterwards he sought out to be a literary journalist in London. In 1891 he converted to Roman Catholicism and even considered becoming a priest. In the same year he joined the Rhymer's Club where he read and discussed poetry at a pub called The Cheshire Cheese in Londons Fleet street, where other members included Yeats, Arthur Symons, and Ernest Dowson.
Johnson, in his poetry, sought to achieve "the elegant simplicity and graceful lasting form that he associated with religious practice." While seeking this pure poetry, Johnson lived a bachelor's life, which mainly included reading books, whiskey and conversation. In many of these conversations he had a habit of repeating many imaginary "conversations" he had had with Cardinal Newman and Prime Minister Gladstone.
Yeats greatly admired Johnson's work and remembered Johnson as representative of "The Tragic Generation" of the 1890's, whose unhappy lives and indulgences kept them from realizing their talent. A constant sufferer of insomnia and alcoholism, Johnson died at the age of thirty-five as a result of falling off a barstool
In The Dark Angel Johnson addresses his fear of seduction. He believes that there is a "dark angel" after him that tries to satanically pull him away from Christ. If the speaker can resist this dark angel, then, he can be spared from the "Second Death," which imprisons the soul in the dead body to torment it eternally.heres the link to the page with the sound poem...
Dark Angel by Lionel Johnson 1867 - 1902 (musical sound poem)


Regards.

Jim Clark
PS..Dont forget you can if you prefer listen to my sound poems at my Yahoo "sound poetry" web group (look in "files") heres that link
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloozman_uk/


All rights are reserved on this sound recording/copyright/patent Jim Clark 2003

The Dark Angel

Dark Angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtile violence!

Because of thee, no thought, no thing,
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!

When music sounds, then changest thou
Its silvery to a sultry fire:
Nor will thine envious heart allow
Delight untortured by desire.

Through thee, the gracious
Muses turn To Furies, O mine Enemy!
And all the things of beauty burn
With flames of evil ecstasy.

Because of thee, the land of dreams
Becomes a gathering place of fears:
Until tormented slumber seems
One vehemence of useless tears.

When sunlight glows upon the flowers,
Or ripples down the dancing sea:
Thou, with thy troop of passionate powers,
Beleaguerest, bewilderest, me.

Within the breath of autumn woods,
Within the winter silences:
Thy venomous spirit stirs and broods,
O Master of impieties!

The ardour of red flame is thine,
And thine the steely soul of ice:
Thou poisonest the fair design
Of nature, with unfair device.

Apples of ashes, golden bright;
Waters of bitterness, how sweet!
O banquet of a foul delight,
Prepared by thee, dark Paraclete!

Thou art the whisper in the gloom,
The hinting tone, the haunting laugh:
Thou art the adorner of my tomb,
The minstrel of mine epitaph.

I fight thee, in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost, is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death:

The second Death, that never dies,
That cannot die, when time is dead:
Live Death, wherein the lost soul cries,
Eternally uncomforted.

Dark Angel, with thine aching lust!
Of two defeats, of two despairs:
Less dread, a change to drifting dust,
Than thine eternity of cares.

Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity