Paradise Retailed

For a bit of fun we were challenged by the Bournemouth Poet Laureate James Manlow to write a glosa.

The glosa is a poetic form developed in Renaissance Spain. The opening quatrain is taken from the work of another poet that we want to acknowledge.  This is followed by four stanzas, each of which is generally ten lines long, that elaborate or "glosses" on the cabeza chosen. Each ending line (10th line) of the four following stanzas is taken from the cabeza.  I’ll leave you to guess which poet I am paying tribute to. (The spelling is as in the original.)

Paradise Retailed

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

That dewy morn among the endless shelves

Of Tesco, ASDA or that other one,

That adamantine chain with carpark dire

The dismal Situation waste and wilde

No light but rather darkness visible

Each hell more sulphrous than the other ones

As far remov’d from God and light of heav’n

As any fruit flown in from Afric’s shore,

They took the easy path through racks of booze

The World was all before them.  Where to choose?

Then pausing, sought a respite from the crush

But found Another hell with queues that stretched

Nine times the space that measures Day and Night.

The pimpl’d youth, he with his horrid crew

That witness’d huge affliction and dismay

Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:

Allowed them precious little time to choose

Designless from the list and thus they sate

And contemplating Eden side by side

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

Then back among the throng in effort wide

A struggle Just to snatch an apple from the shelf

Among the jars and jaffas and the jeans

Our parents’ parents struggled with the lines

For all the world like serpents at the tills.

They stood enrapt by horrid writhing scrums

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came.

They shook their heads and headed for the door.

Whilst others pushed and shoved just anyhow

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

At last had gain’d the portals of that place.

The outer world seem’d now a beauteous park

Like  paradise regain’d In contrast stark.

The gleaming chariots in lines array’d

To carry off the booty from the store.

Our Adam and his Eve from seeming hell

Had ’scaped th’eternal madness of that place,

Eschewed the driven path that others took,

Envelop’d in the blessed aer of day,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.