Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EPITHALAMIUM IN TIME OF WAR; 1941, by RALPH GUSTAFSON Poet's Biography First Line: Now is the time in valiant days Last Line: To her, to him, his blessings bring! Subject(s): War; World War Ii; Second World War | ||||||||
For Pauline Gustafson and Lieutenant Hector Belton March 22, 1941 Now is the time in valiant days When break we from the warring heart's Huge anger. Across the watery ways, The quadrant of the globe's quick girth Though guns in monstrous utterance phrase Their grim denialssummer starts, March bursts the answering hawthorn-sprays, The crocus green from English earth, Gladdened are simple birds who sing Remembered joy, tomorrow's mirth, And all that gentle love shall bring. Of man's dictation cite the deed Or writ or reach to clamp a root, Or lien a leaf, stop sunward weed; With scarlet wax and taper seal, With signet hold the hinge of tide Manacle morning, make mandrake mute! On June clap gyves and dungeon seed! What cumbrous Caesar can repeal Golgotha's grass? Watch where a wing, A whorl, make use of wind and wheel That code and key and clavis bring. How shall the heart be less than leaf Whose signature makes mock of mouths? Of more than grasses man though brief The bravery of his summer's term. Will Godhood brook the snaffle of A straw? O we shall muster deaths And with the paradox of love Loose hate, ally the wooing worm: Precepts borrow from the king Sucked in a cabbage, with Pharaoh's sperm Shall found a line of radish. Bring, Then, bud and bomb before this Foe And let him contemplate his guts. But now, where birch and maple grow, Comes spring to parallel the thorn And England's pledge in bosky blow Where Nightingale her honey puts. The month's last ravelin of snow Is white in woods; beneath the horn Of moon the icicle goes; birds sing; And every fraise and freshet torn With gash and gold that meltings bring. Together, a string of ancient crows Plunge from their limbroaring, the plane Takes drunkenly the field and goes Gale-hardy, skygallant hanger in blue. In darkened foundries burst hot snows; Acres harvest heavy grain. The pampering crane at wharf-edge stows Its hate. At every chimney, clue And crest of iron answer cling. And men, where lately poppies grew, This, and gentle love shall bring For steel and stop, our loves design: In factories death is packed with palms Not harsh to bread and blesséd wine. (Say with what blueprint, ward and wit Shall fist find faith, where Fear confine, Hard Charon quit with easy alms?) Behold, where drums the day's decline, The Sabbath's seven candles lit. No cap nor clock nor reckoning, No fuse but love shall hallow it, No boulder but its Easter bring. And so to martial hills and holms Where Magog holds a town in fee, Love's hater, index, darling comes. Out of the monster cannon's seed, The armoured epoch's gravid wombs Make paradox, from spike and tree Glad words, read April palindromes! Assert the seasons of your need, For in the compass of this ring The future's corners are decreed, God's golden inch, His scaffolding. Then take this dear this double love Whose loop and lunge on heaven's bollards Bind. All love shall Harbour have Whose silken nets its fathoms find. Nor fear, O let no lover grieve: Against the veer and vertical Of God the world's vast corners cleave, Our pitch and parallel is lined. Listen! a thrush declaring spring! Saint Francis walks among mankind. One golden round! God's mastering. Now is the holy time, sweet noon. Within this chapel's candled dusk Does love lack loss, place glory on. Gain gladness! Against these eastward two, Take angles, sights, high orthogon; Mortally, measure against, risk, Arrive at, solve, survey His sun! God's binder goes. Golden through His gates they come! Now belfry, ring! Love, them, each living thing, renew! To her, to him, His blessings bring! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORT OF EMBARKATION by RANDALL JARRELL GREATER GRANDEUR by ROBINSON JEFFERS FAMILY GROUP by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE IN PICTURES by JAMES MCMICHAEL READING MY POEMS FROM WORLD WAR II by WILLIAM MEREDITH |
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