Collection Of Poems

Balad: King Of Cyprus

VIII. Ballad: King Of Cyprus

Once lived a King of Cyprus famed

Who held all women folk in disdain

He eluded wedlock, never to be tamed

While his people, they cried prayers in vain

Venus at last chose to answer their call

From the heavens she flew as a dove

The patron goddess to them Cyprians all

The great Goddess of beauty and love.

Her ethereal visage appeared at night

The King of Cyprus awoke to a dream

For there stood a vision in candlelight

With satin hair and ivory skin agleam

She ordained the King to her divine will

To finally bind himself in matrimony

A fortnight was all she would give till

For him to perform the sacred ceremony

But the King was a rather clever man

And the goddess renowned for her vanity

He swore to carry out the goddess's plan

But only after he carved her beauty of rarity

The delighted daughter of Jupiter agreed

For the King was a sculptor able

But after her depart the King laughed indeed

The sculpture was only to be a fable

The King had possessed no intentions

Of ever completing the promised sculpture

Hence he carried on great pretentions

Thus forever evading his pending capture

Yet fickle Inspiration alas had schemes

His artist soul it haunted and sought

And thus the King yearned 'twould seem

To finish what he swore he would not

His fingers gliding, so nimble, so agile

Carved the ivory day in and night

He stormed and toiled and would even rile

He was fire ablaze and burning bright

He whittled, hewed and cut with care

Till he formed a maiden so very fair

No mortal woman could ever compare

The maiden held his heart ensnare

She was so uncommonly beautiful

The King fell in love with this creation own

His love was tragic and much painful

For the maiden, after all, was only cold stone

Speaking to her in whispers soft and tender

While stroking her smooth skin in awe

He adorned her in silks and great splendor

The King claimed she had no flaw

His touch was reverent and so light

'Twas as though he feared to bruise

Her cool skin pale and ivory white

He treated her like a woman one woos

But when he leaned down to claim a kiss

From her lips of cold marble unyielding

It dawned upon him there was no bliss

Only anguish and much thwarted feeling

Upon his knees he fell and wept

And his arms were raised to pray

There he stood; he never slept

Till Venus finally appeared one day

The King narrated his tragic fate

His love for the maiden of stone

And only her he would ever mate

Only her he would ever make own

"If my destiny is to love solely her

Then Goddess turn me to stone!

So I will stand by her side forever

An eternity! I relinquish my throne"

Venus who moved, by his sincerity

Deemed that he had enough atone

With her immortal powers of divinity

She breathed life into the stone

In blood and flesh and in bone

The fair maiden had come to life

The King finally made her his own

He called her Galatea and his wife

Their tale grew to become lore

Rejoiced amongst the Cyprians

But till today the world has bore

The Legend that is of Pygmalion.