Shadow (Wherever Light Shines)
05 December 2025
https://poems.culturing.net/2025/12/shadow-wherever-light-shines/
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
Water cools not flame, and yet I am cooled
by some frozen spirit, come again to haunt my dreams.
What do I know? How little is truly revealed!
The way is dark and lonely. I will make a home
and live in it alone.
--
Who knows the answers more thoroughly
than a madman? Who craves desire
more than a dead man? I fear I have been
mad, or dead, or deadly mad, but this
must be the shadow born from lofty dreams,
inevitable wherever light shines.
