Chosen Hour, The: Poem by Ina D. Coolbrith

Not when the earth, supine,
In sultry summer-shine
Panted in tawny vesture, leonine;
Panted amid the main
Of billowy golden grain
And golden-tasseled corn;
Faint with the odors, born
Of field and fallow-waving fan and plume
Of the hot tropic bloom,
The lilies’ luster and the roses’ flame,
The pure Redeemer came;
Not with the argosies
Borne on the teeming tides of harvestries,
When ripened fruits fall to the ripened sheaves,
And rainbows tangle in the drifted leaves.

Not when, the woods within,
The brown, bared boughs begin,
Green speck on speck,
Their nakedness to deck,
Till branch and tree glow as with emerald fire;
And one by one return the forest-choir,
Note answering note
From feathered throat to throat,
Pipe, trill. flute, carol-till full song takes wing
With budded sunshine-choruses that ring
To the glad world awakening, the glad Spring-
Came He our Lord and King.

But at earth’s travail-hour!
In time of tempest-lower
And wild winds’ roar,
And maddened ocean-shock
Upon the livid rock,
And drenched, drowned shore.
When from the shuddering cold
The shepherd leads his bleating flock to fold,
And all things seek release
From earth’s wild tumult, came the Prince of Peace!
And from the heavens-those centuries ago-
The New Star shone upon the wastes of snow.

Analysis of this poem