The Honey Bee And The Thistle

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 12

The Honey Bee And The Thistle

(The wedding poem)

by

TED HUGHES

Poet Laureate

(The coat of arms of Sarah Ferguson supplies the Honey Bee and the Thistle.) Upon this day in Westminster That brings the Prince his Bride Out of the sun there swoops a song That cannot be denied. While every television trembles In the organ blare And their cardiographs’ two butterflies Are trying to touch in air, While some weep at the foamy veil That surges her to bliss And some drink to the princely hand That lifts it for the kiss, Before the Country’s dried its eyes Or bells begin to ring That Cherub in a shaft of light Sweetly starts to sing: When all the birds of Roxburgheshire Danced on the lawns, and all i The salmon of the Tweed cavorted Over The Garden Wall Gold as the Honey Bee A helicopter snatched you up. The pilot it was me. The props, like a roulette wheel, Stopped at felicity Soft as the Thistle’s crown But now the Abbey columns Stand like your ancestors, And your I do has struck a root Down through the Abbey floors Gold as the Honey Bee Now like a North pole and a South You bear the magnet globe And axis of our spinning land Where chaos plays its strobe Soft as the Thistle’s crown But as the day’s Commandment Which can no longer wait Yokes Unicom and Lion both To haul the coach of state Gold as the Honey Bee While Royal ghosts in silence Bend at the register And gaze into the letters That you have written there Soft as the Thistle’s crown Like splitting amplification Of thunder come the cheers And set my meaning humming in Your honeymooning ears Gold as the Honey Bee Dance, dance, as Eve and Adam Kicked their worries off In Paradise, before they heard God politely cough Soft as the Thistle’s crown Then dance on, like a tuning fork That wakes unearthly stars In human hearts, and makes them throb Like noble, old guitars Gold as the Honey Bee And dance, and dance, like Sirius Inseparably two Who twirls in heaven, to show the earth What harmony can do Soft as the Thistle’s crown For from this day, which gives you each To each as man and wife That’s the dance, and this is the song Of a true and happy life Gold, gold as the Honey Bee Soft as a Thistle’s Crown (Copyright Ted Hughes 1986)