"John, Matthew, Luke and Mark, / Gospel me to the Garden, let me come / Where Mary twists the warlock with her flowers— / Her soul a bridal chamber fresh with flowers / And her whole body an ecstatic womb, / As through the trellis peers the sudden Bridegroom."
— Lowell, Robert (1917-1977)
Author
Publisher
Harcourt Brace
Date
1946
Metaphor
"John, Matthew, Luke and Mark, / Gospel me to the Garden, let me come / Where Mary twists the warlock with her flowers— / Her soul a bridal chamber fresh with flowers / And her whole body an ecstatic womb, / As through the trellis peers the sudden Bridegroom."
Metaphor in Context
I ponder on the railing at this park:
Who was the man who sowed the dragon's teeth
That fabulous or fancied patriarch
Who sowed so ill for his descent, beneath
King's Chapel in this underworld and dark?
John, Matthew, Luke and Mark,
Gospel me to the Garden, let me come
Where Mary twists the warlock with her flowers—
Her soul a bridal chamber fresh with flowers
And her whole body an ecstatic womb,
As through the trellis peers the sudden Bridegroom.
(p. 63)
Who was the man who sowed the dragon's teeth
That fabulous or fancied patriarch
Who sowed so ill for his descent, beneath
King's Chapel in this underworld and dark?
John, Matthew, Luke and Mark,
Gospel me to the Garden, let me come
Where Mary twists the warlock with her flowers—
Her soul a bridal chamber fresh with flowers
And her whole body an ecstatic womb,
As through the trellis peers the sudden Bridegroom.
(p. 63)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Reading Lord Weary's Castle and The Mills of Kavanaugh (San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Johanovich, 1983)
Date of Entry
07/22/2024
