For Tanith Lee: 19/09/47 - 24/05/15

I began the following tribute to Tanith Lee a few days after I had heard of her sad passing in May 2015. It grew out of a re-reading of one of her most re-printed tales, 'Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur De Fur' [1984] and the beautiful stained glass imagery of the opening paragraph.

Serenity: A Song in Stained Glass

Through stained glass

of leaf-green peridot

of pallid blue jacinth

through silk-fine glass

of storm-dark amethyst

of an ancient dusk of charcoal

through stained glass

of a woodland of green crystal

of a soft descent of blue perfumed twilight

through stained glass

she looks serenely…

the silver snows of sleep have fallen

of velvet petals hued with fluid moon pearl

of the salving argent of slumber

of the caressing wings of white birds…

the sharp, the sable shades of a sepulchre

have been salved away

have been cast down into oblivion

have had the fragrant balm

of lily-white birds

of snows of silver

of slumber of argent

of petals of pearly moons

the cruel frosts of ebony shades

have been thoroughly banished

have been cast down into oblivion

through stained glass she looks serenely

a pale smoke of white cats’ fume about her star-shod feet

and she gazes through leaf-green peridot

through the jacinth of blue eventide

through the purple of royal amethyst

though the charcoal of ancient dusks

and serenely she sees the rippling shadow of lord Death pass

and he passes with his beatific face of ebony

and she looks serenely at his passing

but the pantherine lord of Night

Night’s Master with his cloak of millennial dusk

in his mantle of black and opaline orchids

he she beckons eagerly

gestures through her windows of peridot and jacinth

through her crystal casements of woodland and regal eventide

eagerly she invites Wickness into her stained glass domain

for she scents the imminence of ennui blooming

for she senses the palling of serenity

of the ending of her finite song of stained glass...

© John Gale 2016