Notes About The Poem
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THE LION IN WINTER - The Darkest Hour
THE LION IN THE WINTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May, nineteen-forty~
France bleeds out,
a crimson tide.
jackboots goose-step across Europe,
a continent silenced
gagged by swastikas.
They thought him broken~
the old lion, his mane frosted,
a relic of an empire,
a voice too gravelly,
a toothless roar,
too old.
September bleeds
into a desperate autumn.
He sees the maps,
the relentless gray advance~
the English channel
a fragile moat against the tide
of Reitstiefel und Hakenkreuze.
He stands,
a lion in the winter,
and roars:
“We shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender.
His words, like granite,
hang in the air,
thick with battlefield smoke
and hope~
hurled against the storm,
a lifeline thrown to a teetering nation.
The island stands,
Churchill’s darkest hour,
forged into a beacon.
Reitstiefel und Hakenkreuze. (army boots and swastikas)
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