Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold By "F. Harald Williams"[i.e. F. W. O. Ward]. First Edition |
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RETROSPECT. |
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 | Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold |  |
RETROSPECT.
In the dim shadows of the dying yearI stand apart in awful loneliness,
And read the solemn picture of the past
Unrolled before me like an open book,
Ere it is sealed and laid upon the shelf
Of faded hopes and pious memories
And pretty thoughts and fruitless resolutions.
I see it now with vain regrets and fears,
Too late for medicining of other means;
The thing accomplished that I did not will,
Which came against my better judgment mocked
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Yet came; the wiser thing by me intended,
As some stretched bow without the arrow's point,
A shy and shadowy outline unfulfilled
And blurred but still most beautiful of all,
With sudden sunrise lights and flames of flowers
And promise brighter than the morn. I mark
Myself, a blotted shape, blear-eyed and lame,
Misformed and with dark devious footsteps, blind,
Stumbling and groping painfully along
A way, no way in mist impenetrable,
And beating the thick air with idle hands
Chained; and a different form of grace appears
Beside the other and its counterpart,
Like and unlike my own, divinely human,
Serene and in a solitude of joy
Ineffable, which walks the earth a king
Over itself and all, crowned and complete
In unapproachableness of clear life—
A radiant thing, an immortality.
This is the angel in me, the sweet God
That dwells in every man a dream incarnate,
Magnificence of possibility,
And would arise and from its envelope
Of flesh and blood shine out and scatter beams
And blessings round in excellent fair deeds.
My archetype! I see it manifold
And mystical with inward gifts and graces,
That should be mine and would engarment me
For ever in the purest panoplies
Of innocence with armèd knowledge one;
Did I but bow the stubborn head and stoop
To that dear yoke of utter gentleness,
The service free, which giving all yet garners
Both worlds of beauty with itself in God.
| Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold | |