Saturday, October 22, 2005

Poem Written For Prince Charles and Camilla's Wedding Day


LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has written "Spring Wedding," a poem commemorating the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles:

I took your news outdoors, and strolled a while

In silence on my square of garden-ground

Where I could dim the roar of arguments,

Ignore the scandal-flywheel whirring round,


And hear instead the green fuse in the flower

Ignite, the breeze stretch out a shadow-hand

To ruffle blossom on its sticking points,

The blackbirds sing, and singing take their stand.


I took your news outdoors, and found the Spring

Had honored all its promises to start

Disclosing how the principles of earth

Can make a common purpose with the heart.


The heart which slips and sidles like a stream

Weighed down by winter-wreckage near its source --

But given time, and come the clearing rain,

Breaks loose to revel in its proper course.


Motion, asked about how he approached the writing of the poem, was quoted in the Press Assocation as saying: "This relationship has, as all the world knows, had all kinds of difficulties and trials and tribulations to deal with.

"I thought, rather than address that directly, as might be appropriate in a piece of journalism, in a poem it would be more interesting and richer to treat it in terms of this image of the stream with certain obstacles near the source, but with the passage of time beginning to run clearly in its proper course.

"That is how I feel about the whole wedding."

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