trobaire.org

a collection of literature from poets, bards, songwriters, and skalds in the SCA

Eternal Spring

FriarThomas's picture
FriarThomas
Short Description: 

 

 

 

Poem (Canso): 

In Spring, when days grew long and warm again
And winter’s frosty fist let loose its hold
On life and light and love, and gentle rain
Brought forth in fields and meadows flowers bold
In many hues, to thee I did unfold
The light, life, love and fire that burned in me
And begged you, midst those flowers, wed with me.

In Spring, when days were warm, then cold, then warm,
There came a day that froze the river’s flow
And blew a bitter blast and icy storm,
Left buds and flowers through glassy ice to glow
A day or two, then die. Death dealt his blow.
He swept you swift away, and life and light
And fire went with you too, and love took flight.

In Spring, with wailing pain and bitter scowl,
I fled into my cloistered kind of life
And donned this tunic, scapular, and cowl
To put aside the passion and the strife
Of love. Now, forty years as man and wife
Would we have lived, and still each Spring my grief
At losing you brings pain without relief.

In Spring, God called me from my mother’s womb
Into this world. In Spring I loved. In Spring,
Love died. And now, in Spring, I see my tomb.
I know that soon my requiem will ring
And I shall pass into eternal Spring,
And I would rather keep my grief in hell
Than go with God in blissful peace to dwell.

Documentation / Explanation (Razo): 

I am not sure how to document this other than to say that it is in the rhyme royal form, and that all the words it uses, according to Merriam Webster or the Oxford English Dictionary, are period. (MW has first use of ‘tunic’ in 1609, but OED places it in the 10th century under a variant spelling.) The judges at the contest for which this was written noted that the repitition of words and phrases and the frequent enjambment are not exactly period.

This poem is on the theme of spring, with a little love and death thrown in for good measure. Though it is not the vision of paradise that most people have, the friar knows from his reading of Aquinas that he will not see his beloved in heaven, as the power of the beatific vision of God strips him of his free will and totally engrosses his awareness to the exclusion of all else. So he would rather be in hell and remember at least the grief of having loved than completely lose consciousness of his beloved for all eternity.