1
With coronation done and nuptials sung,
The abbess, King and Queen and I were met
The statues and the tapestries among,
At Ajinblambia’s for tête-à-tête,
2
There in the office where she turned the helm
Upon the poop of Ung’s great ship of state,
The argosy of Ung’s perennial realm
Heavy with its encrimsoned, golden freight.
3
Descending from the high formality
Of great occasions, just pacifically
We chatted in relaxed normality
Of this and that, of nought specifically.
4
Then Ajinblambia began to speak
Of that great marble statue she’d upraise
Atop
Within Mecníta, gilt by golden rays.
5
Mount Vlacva, standing
Would be surmounted by a sculpture white,
Depicting nude and beautiful and sweet,
The royal pair embracing in day’s light.
6
Two thousand feet the carving would ascend,
Which to erect would take full seven years.
Two hundred miles their faces would resplend
To draw from loyal eyes their movèd tears.
7
The peak no longer would
The sculpture over all the planet famed
Would stand in pride for everyone to see.
8
Then Ajinblambia bade Jorbing tug
The model of the statue that would be
Into her office with its lavish rug.
’Twas mounted on a trolley, we could see.
9
The replica was scarcely eight feet tall.
But nonetheless, the abbess and myself
Were much impressed and taken therewithal,
On seeing it atop its rolling shelf.
10
I rose but for a moment to admire
Its graceful lines and beauty unsurpassed,
Then backward but a step did I retire,
Forgetting where I had been sitting last.
11
I had been seated on an oaken chair,
Upholstered in wine plush with golden lace
In tapes sewn to the back with perfect care
With likenesses of blossoms on their face.
12
Howe’er, unthinkingly, instinctively,
In Olezconia’s great lap I sat,
In folds that marked her so distinctively
As abbess of the nunnery whereat
13
I served her as my mistress and my dame.
The King then smiled and said to me with glee,
“O Sister Rogizlenia, your fame
As loveliest of lesbians will be
14
Exclaimed throughout the length and breadth of Ung.”
Her words were like to carillons or chimes,
With golden melody so fitly sung
With silvern harmony’s most perfect rhymes.
15
As I descended, though, the lady King
Bade me upon the abbess’s lap stay,
If that to be therein were just the thing
Myself, I would have chosen on that day.
16
From that day on, there was a single chair
For Olezconia and me to use,
The meaning from thereout did brightly stare.
Could I the will of majesty refuse?
17
For only three great ladies made a quorum,
And I was just a babe or pet for sport,
A non-participant in their high forum,
Meseemed the one-chair rebus did import.
18
The eastern oval would a harem be,
King Ajinblambia to us expressed.
She’d marry girls from Ung and o’er the sea,
Good-looking women into service pressed.
19
She reasoned 20,000 she could wed
Without affecting population trends.
They would be ladylike and nobly bred,
Among themselves sweet comrades and dear friends.
20
Queen Udi o’er the ladies would preside,
Extravagantly, gorgeously attired.
The ladies, though, would e’er be locked inside,
From public view extracted and retired.
21
Just Ajinblambia would come to visit,
Selecting her companions and her brides
From the most elegant and most exquísite
Brought thither from the ether and the tides.
22
The coronation had been held in peace
Within a chapel quaint and dark and rich,
Where swaying censers did their myrrh release
And golden angel flew in oaken niche.
23
Quite few were the attendees at the function,
Who gathr’ing round beheld the crown emplaced
And saw my fingers carry out the unction,
As I the symbols on her forehead traced.
24
But there would be another coronation,
In Pantoflambo Field, a vast expanse
That could contain the millions of the nation
As they would sing rejoicefully and dance.
25
Above the campus beetling, stood the peak.
Mount Vlacva, where the statue would be stood.
It was a mighty emblem that did speak
The glory of the King so wise and good.
26
Both troubadours and minstrels walked about,
And actresses and ballerinas strolled
From stage to stage, and into grove and out.
For there were hill and dale, and wood and wold.
27
The sound of viols, mandolins and lutes
Was blent with that of trumpets and recorders,
And there were bagpipes, oboes, horns and flutes
Amidst wide Pantoflambo’s foursquare borders.
28
Jute sacks of walnuts, cashews and pecans,
Did vie with heaps of pomegranate and pear,
And popping corn, and baking tarts and flans
Released their sav’ry breath into the air.
29
And there were lobster, venison and pork,
And wheaten loaves with sesame bestrewn.
Sufficed the meat for everybody’s fork.
Sufficed the sauce for everybody’s spoon.
30
Liqueur and cider, brandy and champagne
Flowed copiously on that gay pageant day,
Nor were there clouds and wind or pouring rain
The spirit of the feast to drive away.
31
Contestants vied at sports and prizes won,
While poetesses sang their lovely rhymes
Of love and beauty till the day was done.
These were the fairest and the fondest times
32
That ever did befortune Ung’s vast lands.
For Ajinblambia, with high resolve,
Would for a century within her hands
The gimbals of the planet make revolve.
33
Late in the afternoon, she climbed a stair
Onto a dais sápphirinely black,
Pavilioned all around with satin fair
Edged with galloon in front and sides and back.
34
The Queen, the abbess and myself did gaze
With boundless admiration at the sight.
Around such majesty a hallown haze
Was wafted and did mellow solar light.
35
Now Olezconia without a word,
Just almost imperceptibly did nod.
Unto her silent bidding I deferred,
And meekly to the dais quickly trod,
36
For I would give unto the King her crown
That she might raise it to her sovran head,
Then by the stairs would I come quickly down,
And in the abbess’s direction tread.
37
Magnificence and majesty supreme
Embodied by our monarch is this wise,
’Twas likely none would ever even dream,
Much less expect to see it with their eyes.
38
Then skyward we all looked and there beheld
In three dimensions standing on the plain,
A thousand leagues in height, to Zenith swelled,
The likeness of the lady who would reign.
39
Translucent statue, figure made of air,
Hallucination or a mystic swoon,
I wist not what befell us, ’twas so rare
Like this to happen of an afternoon.
40
The great similitude did fill the sky,
As if a goddess were our royal dame.
The apparition reason did defy.
Who was this Ajinblambia by name?
41
The image paled and disappeared at length.
Again the sky was cloudlessly celeste.
Then suddenly a roar of mighty strength
We heard to sound from out the planet’s chest.
42
Meseemed Mount Vlacva rumbled, but ’twas known,
Volcanically the mountain was extinct;
So did the realm’s geologists intone.
To what occurrence was this tumult linked?
43
Alone in apprehension I was not,
For many sighed and gasped to hear this thunder,
Improbable, impossible, I wot,
For this was like to miracle or wonder.
44
With bated breath, in palpable alarm,
We waited for the sequel of this noise.
Were we in danger of eruption’s harm?
Or should we just maintain our wonted poise?
45
The mountain rumbled time and time again,
And tremor followed tremor, fleet and fell.
A panic gripped all women, children, men,
Hysteria that it were hard to tell.
46
Then jets of fire spurted from the mouth,
And lava flowed adown the lofty slopes.
A molten inundation, north and south,
Both west and east would dash our finest hopes,
47
And bury us in seas of flaming stone.
But as the gushing mountain with its charge
Did or’nge the sky, vermilioning the zone
Whereof our pageant grounds were at the marge,
48
A spectacle like none in all my hours
Unfolded on the foothills and on high.
For flames became bright blooms, flamboyant flowers
Whose petals tinged all quarters of the sky.
49
Or’nge pixie and enchantment lilies vied
With irises, or’nge dawn and fleur-de-lis.
Of flaming parrot tulips furlongs wide,
And orchids, birds-of-paradise asea,
50
Of pompoms rouged and marigolds galore,
Red riots, yellow bursts and golden sprays
Kaleidoscoped above, while couronnes d’or,
Canary-colored peonies did blaze,
51
Aflame with fireworks and cressets bright,
In shades of pumpkin, scarlet, crimson, rose.
The firmament was glorious with light,
A choreography of bright flambeaux.
52
The pirouettes and pas de chat of fire
The arabesques and cabrioles of light,
Now burst and leapt, ascending ever higher,
To vie the Sun, if they were just as bright.
53
Then petals and corollas ’gan to pale.
The flames to flicker and to shimmer dimmed.
Now earthwards all the flowers in a gale
Were downward blown. Mount Vlacva next they limned,
54
But momentarily, because eftsoons,
Into the ground, like scimitars, they vanished,
Elongated, like luminescent lunes
Into the planet’s surface they were banished.
55
Anon the sky was azure, and the Sun,
Alone presided Heaven, as before.
Of great phenomena the greatest one
’Twas what we’d just beheld and did adore.
56
However, once again a roar was heard.
Would now a new eruption us betide?
The fumaroles and vents, divinely stirred,
Sent skyward new disgorgements high and wide.
57
This time, candescent lava, dazzling white,
Erupted in a cloud with nacre pearled,
Amorphously at first, till it gained height,
And, over Pantoflambo wafting, swirled.
58
Then patterns and designs began to form,
And symmetries to cut the sky in two.
Just vaguely I descried that from the storm,
The likenesses of birds now fleetly flew.
59
Great ibises and herons seemed to glide
And swans and cockatoos were there en masse.
The avian display, both far and wide,
The limits of the sky did overpass.
60
White pelicans and egrets in formation
Turned Heaven into marquetries untold,
Like to a vault in living tessellation,
As quickly changing patterns did unfold.
61
Cranes echeloning with great storks did wing
In aerial fantasias, flames of white,
With jets and swirls and eddies they did ring,
Ascending towards illimitable height.
62
All of a sudden feathers they did shed,
Which fell like raindrops opalescently,
And glistering and glistening o’erhead,
At last sank into earth quiescently.
63
Cerulean the sky again became.
The golden Sun, declining in the west,
Empurpled cloudy strands, with shades of flame
In the interstices, ere it did rest.
64
As dusk o’erfell the plain with darkling shade,
I and the abbess sadly did retire.
The feasting, only till the morn delayed,
Full seven days would run and then expire.
65
Mecnita’s hundred millions would regale,
in Pantoflambo Field from sun to sun,
On florid hill and in florescent dale,
To celebrate the newly-crownèd one.
66
“Shall we back to Dwesfesco with the morrow,
Or shall we stay to frolic and be cheery?”
With curiosity, perhaps a little sorrow,
To Olezconia I turned to query.
67
“By golden comet early we depart,”—
Thus to our trains we give the sobriquet—
“Day after ‘morrow, walking, we shall start
The pilgrimage beneath the eye of day.”
68
Mubúnur Station, Fwascren’s terminal
Lies twenty miles the convent walls without.
Our pilgrimage, just merely germinal
Unto that compass, long without a doubt,
69
We’d have to fetch, if from the Holy See,
Mecnita, we’d come walking all the way,
Six thousand miles o’er knoll and vale and lea,
Would measure just those twenty in a day.
70
This was a sacrament, a ritual, a rite,
We nuns were bounden always to observe,
When that, detraining with dawn’s early light,
Unto the nunnery our course we’d swerve.
71
Once in the palace oval, where our room,
A fancy chamber curtained in brocade
Of burgundy and gold from daedal loom,
Our figures habited we haply laid,
72
In order just to chat and to converse,
The eiderdown-filled counterpane upon
That did the abbess’s resilient bed
In tufted satin gorgeously o’erspread.
73
Into her arms, by chance, as ’twere, I slipped.
In her embraces it was sweet to be.
My spirit and my heart elixir sipped,
With Heaven’s opium I was asea.
74
Intending no such thing, we fell asleep,
And only when the daystar tinctured Heaven,
Did we wake up. “We’ve slumbered long and deep,”
Quoth I, “The clock will presently chime seven.”
75
Ere we could say it, we were on the street.
We hailed a hansom cab. “Unto the trains!”