Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN TIME OF DANGER, by CHARLES WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN TIME OF DANGER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now far be heavy dreams; you hateful sprites
Last Line: Confirmed the judgements of their lord the king.
Subject(s): Goddesses & Gods; Love; Marriage; Mythology; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


I

NOW far be heavy dreams; you hateful sprites,
That do with many a trick of impish war
Provoke mankind to mischief, cease to mar
The sacred work, but you whom Peace invites,
Loftier divinities, with solemn rites
At dawn and noon and day-fall, be not far
From your fair sister; rather, while her star
Rides fortunate through heaven amid the lights
Of happy mothers, through the house let move,
Silent and bright, the god whose aid attends
All offices of marriage, else too poor;
The grave companion and dear nurse of love,
Lucina wise; and courtesies of friends,
In vigil—serious angels!—by the door.

II

NOW springtime is with spring o'erwhelmed, and white
Down the green boughs the pear tree pours its bloom
Beneath our open windows, which invite
The entering-in of summer to a room
Decked with no other riches, by whose door
Linger the last days of our tender Spring
Till their reluctant feet now from its floor
A newer season exiles, mastering
With promise or threat of mightier storm or sun
Love's leaf-twined corners and delicate buds of joy,
Over whose verdure the hot noons shall run
And drought or tempest gather to destroy;
But O my world, what hope for them endures
Because love's summer, as love's spring, is yours!

III

SPIRIT, who through the unfamiliar shires
Of western England and our journeying days,
By old wrecked ships, rich fields, and thronging byres,
Touched lately with one beauty those new ways
And her bright glance who watched them, be still near,
Be still propitious, now her travels wend
Through high invisible counties,—in her ear
A mightier sea than that which smote Land's End
Sounding, and over her thunder of menacing skies:
Thou, by no other signs of presence known
Than this more brilliant laughter in her eyes,
This cheek more darkly red, this heavenlier-strown
Abandonment to love, whose light thou art,
Thou the full passion of her abounding heart.

IV

HER house no longer knows her, nor the splendid
Companies of bright friends who move therein,
But by her laughter and her jests attended
She takes the ancient highroad of her kin.
Wise Habit, the long nine months' march defending,
Goes with her to the end; but more and more,
Upon the road from inn to inn descending,
Each night she leaves behind her of her store.
Now fewer and more awful servants follow
Whom one by one the gallant troops desert
Of her light mockeries; in the night's dark hollow
The doubtful omens shine, and none avert,
As the last smile, in the last night's rough bed,
Gleams from that childish, wise, adorable head.

V

YE who in your white house beyond the earth
Behold the mysteries of your father Zeus;
Sisters, if ye be sisters, of one birth,
And be not rather one sole name our use
With diverse worship hallows,—no intense
Grief or delight, for its own face obeyed,
Being found unfruitful; all experience
Being maiden and mother as thou art mother and maid,
And man's soul chiefly: Thou then, Thou, impart,
Singular goddess, peace to the world's feud,
And with the knowledge soothe each wounded heart
Of divine life in divine death renewed;
Nor her forget to heal now with the balm
Of thy great Father's medicinable calm.

VI

THOU art returned, and this is safe, yet one—
One sacrifice the infernal gods require:
What worth in thee or this if love be gone,
Slain in the heat of that day's deadly fire?
Thou art returned, but with what hostile brow,
What fierce and elemental enmity,
Against the heart that forced thy heart below
Alone, yet now must share thy victory.
Sole was the conflict, parted the reward:
Equality for ever is gone by
Between our glances; our divine Concord
Neglects his balance, and my scale flies high.
Death shall right all; forget not, till that day,
Thou hast paid much, I too more slowly pay.

VII

HARK, hark, whose step is felt on our hearts' stair?
Our truant is returning! our best Child
Laughs out again to see us everywhere
Amazed at his new presence: now the wild
Anarchic days are overpast and done,
And from his sojourn in some hiddenness
Issues our Government, our elder Son,
Our Peace, our Joy, our Hope, our Love, to bless
With old delight our newer destinies,
To lift his brother in his young strong hands,
Mingling their breath, and with a kiss of peace
Bestow on him his soul's most happy lands;
But himself keep, within our hearts secure,
His rights of awful primogeniture.

VIII

ALL cruelty, all wrath, desire and shame,
Tyranny and treachery, and what breeds with them,
Shall Love to no sharp arrows of death condemn
But into holy fear subdue and tame
And bring into his house: as, in old fame,
When the young Sultan of Hierusalem,
Wearing the magical stone in his diadem
And graven on his ring the unnameable Name,
Entered his hall, his slaves were used to bring,
For guard and glory, seven huge lions before,
Seven lions behind him; each by a golden hair
Led to the throne of gold and ivory, where
They all day stood and with reiterant roar
Confirmed the judgements of their lord the king.





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