Poem: "Subridet Sub Rosa"
The title of the poem is Latin for "She secretly smiles," or more literally, "She smiles under the rose."
This poem was first published in The Lost Country literary journal.
“Subridet Sub Rosa”
By Tyler Morrison
Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele
A lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna
La seconda bellezza che tu cele.1
Her lips are fixed with permanence
In a pensive non-expression,
Simply curved and pinkish plain.
She buries here her prized possession,
A secret smile that Horus2 keeps,
The hidden cove, a lover’s trove
Untouched by the searching, yearning glance
Of strangers who would a god profane.
If verses could but part the petals,
What winsome wealth of mirth would show;
How lily-white the sudden flash
That breaks beneath the opened rose!
“Look here, my lady! I call to thee.
Oh, end thy silence! Laugh for me.”
But I have not a Dante’s power
To peel away Harpocrates.3
Unless the young god’s unseen finger
Be lifted by a flimsy rhyme,
Then her mouth shall stay a virgin flower,
And I before this moonlit balcony
Will pine lightheaded and wait her favor,
Writing odes to buy love time.
A reference to Beatrice’s beatific smile that she hides like a shining treasure.
Dante’s Purgatorio: Canto 31, Lines 133-138 (English verse translation courtesy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published 1867.)
“Volgi, Beatrice, volgi li occhi santi,”
era la sua canzone, “al tuo fedele
che, per vederti, ha mossi passi tanti!
"Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele
a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna
la seconda bellezza che tu cele.”
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes,"
Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one,
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps."
"In grace do us the grace that thou unveil
Thy face to him, so that he may discern
The second beauty which thou dost conceal."Egyptian deity, the patron of silence and secrets, depicted at times as a youth with one finger pressed over his lips to signal, “shh; hush.”
