Psalm to Bathsheba

Song for Bathsheba

Bathing as an angel, you, my naked

beauty! From first I saw you airing dry,

I knew my heart gone, saw cupid take it

 

oh brutal arrow! slayer of three, make it

right to wrongly act! Oh, but tell me why,

bathing angel, you stood outside naked

 

for me to see . . . my heart now yours, rake it

over Hell’s coals and purge our sin. Though sly,

I knew my heart gone, by cupid taken

 

turned from my wives, my faith, laid it naked

to temptation your beauties multiply

as you, angel, bathed, free and stark naked

 

beneath a kindly sun—king’s eyes raked in

that beauty like a wealth of jewels. I

knew that heart was stolen. Did cupid take it,

 

or was it me who chose to give it? Fly

now, save yourself. Don’t ask me why I cry.

You bathed as an angel, be mine, naked

cupid, my heart is all yours, now take it.

David M Pitchford
6 May 2008