Ode to
Nan Min
Far from forbidden is our love, sweet Nan,
That never braved rebuke nor Heaven's ban,
And though you oft discoursed around my subject,
Thou never wast subordinate an object.
Our love-games are but verbal, little Min,
In culmination not one jot of sin.
How sweet and fitting, courting such a friend,
So to avoid a rough-hewed messy end.
Too fine a thing hast thou for play so hard
To cast thy lot on fortune's fickle card.
I would not tear thy loveliness asunder
Nor make of thee a pagan's night-time plunder.
I've stood my dose of stark reality
To mitigate 'gainst such brutality,
Nor, though thine absolution be forthcoming,
To lose my head in conduct unbecoming.
My lovely Agnes,
I would have you know,
When Dora proved but misery and woe,
Thy lovely beacon, star to wand'ring bark,
Shone bright upon me when my night was dark.
Then by what mystery carnal spirits tame,
Refusing to engage love's treacherous game?
For such delight have we imagined both,
We might ere this have undermined our troth.
For when before me thy swift steps invoke
And myriad flickers beckon and provoke
And when thy place awaits my limb's approach,
Mine upright dalliance begs a low reproach.
My love, thou know'st, is brotherly and chaste.
Wherefore then, would I wreak a wanton waste?
Though some folks would maintain it is alright,
I know this thing would render me uptight.
Fair Orchid, "Lan" by your Korean name,
Whose appellation from a poem came,
Slipper of Venus, better than hybrid,
To pluck thee at thy root I quite forbid.
My love of wilderness, kinder than that,
Shall not disturb thy natural habitat.
I see thee, bearded flower or wild pink,
But not in thee my pride to sink, I think.
By various names thy species is addressed
According to the manner thou art dressed.
Among these are "pearl-twists" and "ladies' tresses"
And for thy name the proudest heart confesses.
O cypripedium of swollen lip,
The bees crowd round thy sacred sap to sip.
Thy labellum secreting nectar pure
Is highly prized among th'apoidea.
"What rare unfolding must be lodged therein?"
Suppose the dizzy swarms in buzzing din,
"Who is this loveliness that they call 'Nan'?
For her secretions would I be her fan."
And droning on in my poetic slant,
I see thou art a rare and complex plant:
Prime specimen of flora saprophytic
And matter to my musings epiphytic.
And now with tribute unto thee complete,
Devotion's gesture of poetic feet,
I hope my metered measure shall entreat
Your rare unfolding to our love discreet.
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