16 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Changing Land

I plan these things out ahead of time. For the longest time, I had the Waste Lands as the poem for The Changing Land, but I just couldn't make it work. Eventually I decided there wasn't much of a connection between them; I was just hung up on the similarity between the names. 

And yeah, I'll admit, some of the connections are a bit tenuous and I've probably done worse but I had to draw a line somewhere and that was it.

I decided on Poe's The Haunted Palace. I have a couple placeholders and days that aren't yet assigned, but I'm probably not going to match a poem to The Black Throne. I just didn't like it enough and there are only so many days in a month. 

I think it's a good match, though. It captures that eerie intersection of grandeur, madness, and ruin that defines The Changing Land. There was a time when things were otherwise, and the echoes can still be heard in places, but the world has moved on and those times will never return. 

In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace—

Radiant palace—reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion,

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow

(This—all this—was in the olden

Time long ago)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingèd odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne where, sitting,

Porphyrogene!

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms that move fantastically

To a discordant melody;

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh—but smile no more.