A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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 | A Child of the People |  |
97
PHANTOMS.
Oft in my haunted soul will flit
Some blind-born thought about the gloom,
That, ere the soul's hands compass it,
Creeps to its lidded tomb;
Some blind-born thought about the gloom,
That, ere the soul's hands compass it,
Creeps to its lidded tomb;
And, fearful of the phantom dawn,
Stirs out no more to wile or lure;
Yet, when the watch is well withdrawn,
Gleams forth untrapped, secure.
Stirs out no more to wile or lure;
Yet, when the watch is well withdrawn,
Gleams forth untrapped, secure.
Then if I spur a stumbling sense
Along the labyrinths, straight has passed;
And, shackled with my impotence,
I lose it at the last.
Along the labyrinths, straight has passed;
And, shackled with my impotence,
I lose it at the last.
My soul is full of ghosts like this,
That breed and brood in starless caves;
She cannot sound the black abyss,
Or, reaching, search these graves.
That breed and brood in starless caves;
She cannot sound the black abyss,
Or, reaching, search these graves.
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Yet but to reach perchance is gain;
For though the spectral thought eludes,
Still may she clutch some slenderest chain
That threads the solitudes.
For though the spectral thought eludes,
Still may she clutch some slenderest chain
That threads the solitudes.
So then the flying forms are kind
That, though they flee, their track betray
If, on a star's trail, stars I find,
I am no cast-away.
That, though they flee, their track betray
If, on a star's trail, stars I find,
I am no cast-away.
And since her mystery hath no shore,
Nor half her treasures can she guess,
She saith, “God yet may give me more,
But gives me first the less!”
Nor half her treasures can she guess,
She saith, “God yet may give me more,
But gives me first the less!”
| A Child of the People | |