By

David Chirko

© 2005 David Chirko

Life, for the Romantic, is a gallant dream not waking,
whose Knights In White never dismount from melody;
their stallions, the inamorata of love’s aching,
where artistic delirium is a ride of minuet to threnody.

Blossoming early, an apparition in pink shoes;
with hair like a coiffure, containing rivers, magic
and eyes of angels, parading under its blues;
my memory of whom became a Symphony Fantastic.

In the Second Movement of manhood, in the Halls Of My Symphony
my haunting eyes caught your aloofness, and opened your bosom;
like a soft and sad waterfall, your voice reached me
and returned like your sojourn, across the sea, so lonesome.

Yes, I must always seek the ultimate ideal -
An idee fixe, never leaving my dreams, how unreal.

Ah, so back in the softness of a real life experience,
Camille, you are the fuel of a fantasy come true,
but once again, in the theatre, those lovesome moments
harken the return of my manhood’s vision, anew.

But even goddesses are battered in their invalid years,
so I love and lose another in a tragedy, pastoral;
at a visit to Love’s Twin Valleys of Death, in tears,
my eyes then sober, ensnaring a last femme fatale.

Beside Harriet, Marie, and finally, Amelie, I lie
gone with each lily awakening of love, still wet
for my childhood love is the finale who will never die -
Estelle, you’re in my memories, I won’t forget.

David Chirko 
Sudbury, Ontario 
Canada 

    We are most grateful to Mr David Chirko for sending us a copy of this poem.

    Mr Chirko is an artist and a poet. He has been painting since 1981 (see on this site two paintings of his inspired by Berlioz). His publications include: Selected and Collected, 1978; Another Collection of Poems, 1978; and Flaming Angels of Spring, 2004. See also a profile of David Chirko on the Ontario Poetry Society’s website and a sample of his recent paintings.

The Hector Berlioz Website was created by Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin on 18 July 1997; this page created on 1 January 2005.

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