On a Note of Triumph

I came upon some old letters the other day. Letters my father had sent to my mother during the long, unspeakable horrors on the battlefields of World War II.  The letters are filled with hope, encouragement, bravery and love in a frightful time that was so often out of their control. Their words gave me strength and a new perspective for the challenges that I face today.

And then in one letter… it was over, this war that involved the entire world was simply...over. 

Just today, I heard someone reciting “The Prayer” as heard by an estimated 60 million people as they clustered around their radios on V-E Day in 1945 a few months before V-J Day.

I can close my eyes and envision Mother (only 20 years old) with her parents and sisters sitting together, clasping hands in grateful, tearful jubilation having just heard that the war in Europe had ended. And as Grandpa turned the radio knobs hoping to land on a clearer signal, they would have listened with tears in their eyes to the hope that this prayer provided.

“The Prayer”

An Excerpt from “On a Note of Triumph”

By Norman Corwin

(First broadcast on CBS May 8, 1945)

Reprinted in a "Reverberations" article posted by Peter Manseau 7/24/2013*

Lord God of trajectory and blast,
Whose terrible sword has laid open the serpent
So it withers in the sun for the just to see,
Sheathe now the swift avenging blade with the names of nations writ on it,
And assist in the preparation of the plowshare.

Lord God of fresh bread and tranquil mornings,
Who walks in the circuit of heaven among the worthy,
Deliver notice to the fallen young men
That tokens of orange juice and a whole egg appear now before the hungry children;

That night again falls cooling on the earth as quietly as when it leaves Your hand;
That freedom has withstood the tyrant like a Malta in a hostile sea,
And that the soul of man is surely a Sevastopol 

Which goes down hard and leaps from ruin quickly.

Lord God of the topcoat and the living wage
Who has furred the fox against the time of winter
And stored provender of bees in summer’s brightest places,
Do bring sweet influences to bear upon the assembly line:
Accept the smoke of the milltown among the accredited clouds of the sky:

Fend from the wind with a house and a hedge
Him who You made in Your image,
And permit him to pick of the tree and the flock,
That he may eat today without fear of tomorrow,
And clothe himself with dignity in December.

Lord God of test-tube and blueprint,
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors
and give instruction to their schemes;

Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father’s color
or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream
as those who profit by postponing it pretend:

Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of little peoples through
expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come
for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

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*Journalist Peter Manseau posted:

In his masterpiece, “On a Note of Triumph,” broadcast on V-E Day, 1945, Corwin put his skills as a deadline poet to work in the creation of secular scripture. Celebrating the Allied victory in Europe, he used the opportunity not for chest-thumping but introspection. He surveyed what had been gained and what had been lost in the war, and in the closing moments of the 58-minute broadcast, entwined the ancient tradition of divine petition with the technologies and politics destined to grant or deny the prayers of the future.

The broadcast gave Corwin a larger simultaneous audience than any writer had ever had before. It ran twice on all four networks and was heard by more than 60 million people—at the time nearly half the U.S. population. Out of a technology that seemed to some to breed isolation, Corwin used his radio pulpit to reach the biggest congregation in history.