The garden where he broods is like a riddle. <br />The circle of the gravel walk, <br />The sundial which is stationed in the middle, <br />A poppy on its hairy stalk: <br />These are like clues from which may be inferred <br />Imperatives of the Almighty's Word. <br /> <br />And nature veils, he thinks, a master plan. <br />Where hunters feel the woods grow level, <br />The hare the two dogs savage is frail Man, <br />The two dogs are the Pope and Devil; <br />And in the wind that courses through the forest, <br />He hears the pure truth the first angels chorused. <br /> <br />Odd, how his genius courts expectancy, <br />And views life as a text it's read. <br />Yet others, seeking God in all they see, <br />Not finding Him, will claim He's dead, <br />Or will descry false gods when history slips <br />Into a fraudulent Apocalypse. <br /> <br />This lies, however, centuries away. <br />The present prospect is of hills, <br />The garden which he walks in, day by day, <br />Leisure he restlessly fulfills, <br />While far below the fortress, the cascade <br />Drifts its cold white breath through the gorge's shade. <br /> <br />If everything's arranged, then even doubt <br />Is simply a predestined mood; <br />And thus he justifies, as he works out, <br />His doctrines and his solitude, <br />Gaining conviction while he frets and grieves <br />Till, one gray dawn in early March, he leaves. <br /> <br />Even this last scene's ambiguously spliced: <br />The bridge creaks down, he rides across; <br />His mount's as humble as the mount of Christ; <br />And, see, out there above the Schloss, <br />A widening band of chimney smoke is curled <br />Vaguely downwind, toward the modern world.<br /><br />Timothy Steele<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-wartburg-martin-luther-1521-22/
