Our Lady Peace

Mark Van Doren 1894 (Vermilion County) – 1972 (Torrington)



How far is it to peace, the piper sighed,
The solitary, sweating as he paused.
Asphalt the noon; the ravens, terrified,
Fled carrion thunder that percussion caused.

The envelope of earth was powder loud;
The taut wings shivered, driven at the sun.
The piper put his pipe away and bowed.
Not here, he said. I hunt the love-cool one,

The dancer with the clipped hair. Where is she?
We shook our heads, parting for him to pass.
Our lady was of no such trim degree,
And none of us had seen her face, alas.

She was the very ridges that we must scale,
Securing the rough top. And how she smiled
Was how our strength would issue. Not to fail
Was having her, gigantic, undefiled,

For homely goddess, big as the world that burned,
Grandmother and taskmistress, frild and town.
We let the stranger go; but when we turned
Our lady lived, fierce in each other's frown.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

48 sec read
209

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXAX BCBC DEDE FXFA GHGH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 845
Words 159
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. more…

All Mark Van Doren poems | Mark Van Doren Books

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