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THE WEDDING During that long time, in those places, Courage did no hard thing That could not be easily lived-with. There, as I watched them have it, One of them leaned Low in the bell-tent, Sewing a tiger's gold head To the scarred leather breast of his jacket. Another pounded softly, with a hammer, A Dutch coin, making a ring for his wife. In the late afternoon, they placed The mallet by the pole Of the slack tent, And put on the tiger's head, blazing Over the heart. Among them I moved, Doing the same, feeling the heavenly beast, Without a body, attempt in pure terror to move His legs, as if to spring from us, His lips, as if To speak for us, As we rode to the black-painted aircraft, And climbed inside and took off. Many are dead, who fell battling The gold, helpless beast that lay Bodiless, on their breaths Like an angel In the air, Who wore their silver rings upon Their gloved, sprung little fingers, So precious had they become, So full of the thought of their wives 32 That the scratched, tired, beaten-out shining Was more Humanly constant Than they. Years later, I go feeling All of them turn into heroes, As in the closed palm of my hand, And am strangely delighted to find That they are, to history also, Heroes as well, Though nameless, As the tiger dies, folded over itself in the attic, As the moon-glowing, center-bored rings We made good before the dark missions, Softly pounding our handful of money, Have been given safely to children, Or nothing, Or to the sea, The human silver, essential to hope in the islands, Now never worn by woman in its life. Into the Stone 3 3 ...

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