 | The Poetical Works of John Payne |  |
155
FATAL ATTAINMENT.
HAPLY, my hope shall find me unawares,Fall on me from a thunder-smitten sky,
As Spring-light changed to lightning-flash; and I,—
Bent to some gross dull web of clinging cares,
Having forgot the aim of all my prayers
But for that second,—see the thing on high
And knowing it for awful and so nigh,
Lose heart to grasp it or to mount the stairs
Of light let down to lift me heavenward.
So all my soul shall shrink into a sigh
Of impotence; and with its sense outpoured
Into one unrelenting ecstacy
Of yearning for the mirage golden-shored,
My life shall fold its frail faint wings and die.
| The Poetical Works of John Payne | |