The Ivory Citadel

I received a let­ter writ­ten by my beloved late one evening, filled with long­ing and concern’d that such pluck­ing of the heart strings was undesired. Distraught and unable to find any solace in con­tem­pla­tive qui­es­cence, she remarked, “I sim­ply enjoy writ­ing…”. This sen­ti­ment which I know with deep­est sym­pa­thy and which – in me – bor­ders on an ill­ness, inspired me to acqui­esce to “the poet’s vein, or scrib­bling itch” and com­pose a rec­i­p­ro­cal let­ter. It quickly descend’d into idol­a­try and a pro­fes­sion of deep­est love. So care­fully did I sculpt this piece that I am cer­tain that it is the most ingen­u­ous expres­sion of Emo­tion that has ever slipped from my pen. The rip­pling waters so disturb’d by the ardor of my prose shall never set­tle lest the whole earth be con­sumed in fire. I have done and noth­ing shall be as it once was.

Dear­est Love,

I know well that Insid­i­ous Mono­ma­nia that pos­sesses one and dri­ves one to scrib­ble madly. Writ­ing is a cathar­sis and the dam of emo­tion is bro­ken wide and spills out like a tor­rent. Oliver Wen­dell Holmes put it so well,

“If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
Were changed to ink, and all earth’s liv­ing tribes
Had noth­ing else to do but act as scribes,
And for ten thou­sand ages, day and night,
The human race should write, and write, and write,
Till all the pens and paper were used up,
And the huge ink­stand was an empty cup,
Still would the scrib­blers clus­tered round its brink
Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.”

O Love of Mine, I carry a yoke that bur­dens me, but which is made light by your affec­tions. I feel like Atlas bear­ing up the Heav­ens. There is within my breast a deposit of emo­tion that burns to be released from its shack­les. Unfor­tu­nately they are so com­plex and labyrinthine; dizzy­ing, mad­den­ing, and enig­matic that I can hardly orga­nize them and infect the parch­ment with my quill.

A thou­sand ener­gies pulse through me and I remain hope­lessly unable to chan­nel them. If only I could com­mu­ni­cate the fire that burns like coals of incense; the prayers of Angels; a smoke emit­ted from sacred thuri­bles flut­ter­ing toward Heaven. If only I could tap the well­spring that o’erflows with a hun­dred upon a hun­dred sen­sa­tions of joy, min­gled with loss and sor­row, then per­haps you would know the ado­ra­tion I shower upon your Angelic form.

How mer­ci­less is Time & Space! How unac­com­mo­dat­ing they seem!

I have hardly won you and I am deprived of your warm embrace. I have hardly kissed you and your lips are a desert away. It is as if I have lost a Pearl of Great Price amongst the swine and I can­not retrieve it from the entrench­ment where it is buried in the dis­mal waters.

I feel more crip­pled by your absense than by any haz­ard of health. If God should see fit to wrest from me all move­ment, sight, and sound; still yet the ring­ing of your spirit would pierce through the shroud that enveloped me.

Though our love – like a wine – is young, it is matur­ing at a rate that can only guar­an­tee its readi­ness for the sum­mer bot­tling. The sweet nec­tar of your scent blinds me to the world’s ugli­ness and ren­ders me mute to the pitiable tur­moils that pos­sess other men.

I care not whether the King reigns or the Repub­lic ruins, whether the cel­lar is stocked or the wood chopped; whether I rise to the sun or to a tem­pest fill’d with the fury of the gods; I know noth­ing, but that yearn­ing that calls me to the foot of the plinth the bears you up – beneath which I wor­ship you – that is the source of my content.

I know no other music than the ambrosial melody of your voice. Call to me and the Wind will deliver your mes­sage, for even that regal force bows to such a love as ours and sub­mits to its will.

How many ways can I say it? You are my Beatific Vision, my Beat­rice, my Juliet, my Isolde, my Eury­dice, my Josephine, my Francesca, you are the light of my morn­ing, the stars that dot my Heaven, you are the Ivory Citadel to which I am ever journeying.

I aban­don Reason’s demon­stra­tions & proofs and allow myself to be enrap­tured and unhar­nessed by that mad­ness of love that unites us until Eter­nity should con­sume us.

You are my Beloved and you shall be my Betrothed,
My Heart is held in your ten­der hands,

Mitch