07.05.2007, 10:24
The Uncharmed
My piercéd life was all ablood with sorrow
For, suddenly, the veil of beauty thrown
By glorifying youth over sweet to-morrow
Fell, and disclosed to me the future's frown;
Within the wrinkles of whose unread brow
There was a lurking something which till then
I dreamed not hung before the lives of men,
Ready to fall upon them as they grow
Into the longer knowledge of brief years:
Blank vacancy; and doubt; and strangled tears
That never reach the eyelids; vanishing
Of all sweet things we love; death-beds; and graves;
And shadowy wrecks, where pale hopes trembling cling,
Heart-faint, and stifled by continual waves!
My piercéd life was all ablood with sorrow
For, suddenly, the veil of beauty thrown
By glorifying youth over sweet to-morrow
Fell, and disclosed to me the future's frown;
Within the wrinkles of whose unread brow
There was a lurking something which till then
I dreamed not hung before the lives of men,
Ready to fall upon them as they grow
Into the longer knowledge of brief years:
Blank vacancy; and doubt; and strangled tears
That never reach the eyelids; vanishing
Of all sweet things we love; death-beds; and graves;
And shadowy wrecks, where pale hopes trembling cling,
Heart-faint, and stifled by continual waves!