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The Pledge of a Knight
Shawn Thornburg

When day breaks
And shadows
Throw their shrinking claws
Across the tufts
And creases of my covers,
I, lying as a watchman,
Half in and
Half out of a dream,
Find to my joy
That a gentle form
As beautiful as the full moon and
As pure as the sun
Is aiming its countenance at me,
And from it
A crescent of white is
Happily beckoning a reply.
Can such a love as hers
--a love that is forgotten by this world,
A love that this world has
Bartered away
And prostituted
To a less wild love
That burns brightly,
Quickly,
Falsely--
Deserve anything less
Than my very life in return?
No less does it deserve!
And I,
Knowing this love first hand,
Receiving this love daily,
Freely give my life to her,
And would freely
Lay it down
--and, were it within my power,
Take it up again--
For her:
The woman who smiles beside me;
The woman whose concept man has lost;
The woman whose purpose society has perverted;
The woman for whom I would fight against time and death;
The woman for whom I would move the heavens
And overturn the Earth,
And battle the greatest dragons;
The woman who is
My wife.

As a response to recent criticism of this poem, I feel the need to add a commentary. I wrote this poem shortly after reading the book "The Sacred Romance" by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge. That book inspired me to do a study on Song of Solomon in the Bible, and I wrote this poem as a response to those two combined events. I am not married, so obviously this poem is not about me. Instead, it is my metaphor of God's view of us as His chosen people--the Body--as channeled through my own eyes as a human: "It will no longer be said to you, "Forsaken," Nor to your land will it any longer be said, "Desolate"; But you will be called, "My delight is in her," And your land, "Married"; For the LORD delights in you, And to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, So your sons will marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So your God will rejoice over you." Isa 62:4-5 (NASU) Some of the lines are even lifted straight from Song of Solomon. All of this nonsense that I am in any way writing a poem exemplifying a pattern of spousal worship is a brazen and brash misjudgement, and the one from whom this judgement comes should re-examine his own relationship with the One he claims to follow. You who passed this unrighteous judgement have done so without knowledge of me or my relationship with my Lord, and such a judgement is the way of Satan, with whom I have no part. Get behind me.

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