Chivalry Is Not Dead Came Over The Rattling Wires Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

to those who imagine as if they could
they have overthrown the chivalric, the mythic
stalwart who now less and less each hour

triumphantly report the trending dour

are feebly telegraphing us, say,
from the scenes of their irrelevant ancient disasters-
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magnified through Time
that none who lived before are gone
that they quest on

and in their questing live
more vividly than those
who imagine as if they could

that they have overthrown in their modernity
the Good, all those who enchanted the stones
to human speech and

were unashamed of griefs, of faith, of God remembered
of wrongs assuaged in remembering,
battling on

who lived in Springtime daylight through
blizzards of brimming and blossoming fear
intrepid in their flights and

greener than the green that surrounds you now
this May's commencements, through heavy nights

they kept the freshness of a dream
unto the ebbing of their day
the young men fervently schooled to learn

their chivalry in turn
before the decimating wars

oh how will you wipe their blood away their scars
the stains on every page of glory beyond this Age
of disparagement as far as star is from star

still their angels stand in the breach
the heavenly Door ajar
and will not-

give way

mary angela douglas 9 may 2017