Womyn of Pow'r

                                                                          

               art: Lucas Cranach , the Elder   "Judith w the head of Holofernes"

 

 For al that I am ne frere ne clerke

And what have I to do with poesie,

Unlearned I, as fair Alis of Bathe

Yet sooth it seems in swych a wyse

As she, so also I,

For she that wiste no thing, coude al.

 

If the devil mocketh Holy Writ

Tis the wys wyf may understand

And take it for her own, and this

By experience, tho this be her dampnacionn.

It is the words themselves

And the ideas of wych they be the goste

And ne the marks upon the paper

That sacred be.

 

For this she recketh, tho the leves be brynned

And written lies are thus gone up in smoke

The pow’r of the word is present still

And she that struck the fyr hath it y-clept.

Verrily, it seemeth so, pardee

For bye swych action geyns she sovereintee.

 

 

© 1989 pamela twining