“Nephelidia” is the single most purposeful purple poem I’ve ever personally perused, and I adore it.
I also haven’t a clue what it means, but that’s okay, because it’s an amphigouri,* and amphigouris only seem like they should have meaning, when, really, they’re utter nonsense.
You have to respect someone who can pull that off with intent, when so many of us do it accidentally and with far less panache.
I suspect, though, that one person too many mentioned that Algernon Charles Swinburne needed to pull back a little on the adjectives, adverbs, and high-falutin’ polysyllabic verbosity, so Mr. Swinburne nodded thoughtfully, sat down at his desk, and wrote this out with the middle finger on his free hand gliding down the pages of his favorite thesaurus.
Or maybe that’s nonsense, too. Hard to tell, sometimes.
Nonsense or not, there are some fine lines in here, no?
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* Isn’t that a fantastic word? It ought to be a genii in a test tube, or the spirit of a magical squash, or something written under the influence of something herbal that makes one’s imagination into a Kaleidoscope made of fruit jello. Good word, amphigouri . . .
Earful of Cider 