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Lay for the Day
2nd April

The month of April is named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. In ancient Rome the early part of the month was sacred to Venus, the Romans’ equivalent deity, and was a time for pranks, hilarity, cross-dressing and the like, in honour of that goddess whom Homer calls the “laughter-loving” one.
From The Legacy:


XIII. The Fashion

Should naked-born desire don old clothing
Or that which turns time take the latest trim,
Lacing a bold body up in the whim
Of fashion’s current, gushing and frothing?
Beauty unashamed courts public loathing
Though in another morning age, less dim
With durance, to Venus’ Parian quim
Nothing was so well suited as nothing.
That day’s gone. Go get your wildest show on
And we’ll step out tonight to tell the town
In dress how we delight ourselves undressed
When in each other’s arms we’re host and guest.
Love inspires a style bested by no one,
Though like that emperor’s, bare but for his crown.

John Gibbens
from Legacy
 

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar