Cynthia

🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃

  Wordle #294 

First, a few lines from Lord Weary’s Castle, a book of poetry by Robert Lowell.

From: The Ghost (After Sextus Propertius)*

 
“You cannot turn your back upon a dream,
For phantoms have their reasons when they come:”

Prompt words in red.

I sleep alone,

yet not entirely alone.

I lay in dark secret

whispering to a ghost.

Someone no longer bone,

now unwashed and rotting black.

Still, under my silk canopy

she sparkles golden.

 

©2022 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserve

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*Sextus Propertius was an Italian poet of ancient Rome.  Published in 29 BCE, the first of his first four books of elegies is called Cynthia, who is the heroine of the works.  Cynthia, real name Hostia, was the author's mistress.  In elegy IV:7 Cynthia's ghost is featured.  https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/PropertiusBkFour.php#anchor_Toc201112561   Robert Lowell, in turn, wrote his own translation and take on the elegy.