"All Manner of Thing"
Though Love once reared the Hell that broke
Achilles’ rage and weary heart,
And built the horse that breached the walls
And empty temples rent apart—
Though God stretched out His mighty arm
And snatched the Captain’s feeble limb,
Then breathed His vengeance in the Whale
Mad Ahab sought in voyage grim—
Though on the pilgrim’s tired road
The Wife of Bath to travelers told
Of sovereignty and ancient grief
And men that snapped her aged soul—
Though on the rising mountain path
The Poet lost his dearest guide
Who suffered, suffered into truth
He could not know before he died—
Perhaps the hands that built the walls
And tore that city down again
Will dry those eyes that weep for Troy
And cross the souls of soldiers slain.
Perhaps the mind that ever knows
The Crucifix in Ahab’s face
Has sent His Son to calm the waves
And shatter in the Pequod’s place.
In Canterbury’s springtime joy,
Perhaps the Woman’s hearing’s healed,
And like the lone Samaritan,
She tastes the Christ in bread concealed.
Perhaps the poets blessed the road
Which touched the sweetly trickling stream
That flows from Lethe into Hell
To purge the sinners’ waking dream—
Perhaps all Dante’s widening world
Reveals a grace too light and sparse—
And Virgil meets the Love at last
That moves the sun and other stars.
Sophie is a Stoa alumna who competed for three years with Skagit Defenders Speech & Debate Club and coached for two years. After high school, she attended Hillsdale College and will graduate this May with a B.A. in Latin and English. This fall, she will begin teaching English and Latin.
The views expressed in pieces written by guest authors are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Stoa or the Stoa Alumni Committee.