The Marriage of Margery Paston

Poem by James Knox Whittet

- Margery's resistance and love

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You kept alive your romance by letters,

sent in secrecy to avoid their shame;

your life was bound by family letters,

you could no longer speak your lovers' names.

You were beaten; compelled to kneel on stone

Floors for hour after hour in fervent prayer;

you felt the sting of Father Gloys' voice drone

like questing bees across fields of clover.

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But you held fast to promptings of your heart:

tapestries woven out of threads of ink

when pain and longing are shaped into art

to heal ancient fissures of social rank.

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You heard love's whisper beneath shouts and cries

till wedding bells pealed beneath Norfolk skies.