Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPITHALAMIUM IN TIME OF WAR; 1941 by RALPH GUSTAFSON

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;
@3For Pauline Gustafson and Lieutenant Hector Belton March 22, 1941@1

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 denials—summer 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 limb—roaring, 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!



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