Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HALL OF REGRETTED THINGS, by GERTRUDE FAITH MORGAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HALL OF REGRETTED THINGS, by                    
First Line: Oh, soft! Tread softly, ye stranger, here!
Last Line: To the hall of regretted things.
Subject(s): Regret


Oh, soft! Tread softly, ye stranger, here!
Enter the lamentable hall, built by my years;
See stored here in dust and rusted decay
The treasured regrets from some other day.
Here, in sealed jars, love stores her tears;
Speech whispers o'er names forbidden by years;
Dream fills the hours with the touch of a stilled hand;
Time ministers to heartache, offering future's golden sand;
But the loveliest gestures of all coming years
Cannot redeem the things I've stored here.

Beauty is here, gnarled and twisted with pain.
Oh the years have filled my hall with many a thing!
The whisper so tender is conscience, still aiming high --
That black lote there, is anger, with greed close by.
Here is a pearl -- 'twas a fleeting joy --
A happy look killed on the face of a boy.
Just one teardrop stored this great chest within?
'Twas shed in remorse o'er a first-done sin.
More room in the chest? Yea, so in the hall --
But my heart's overflawing with the burden of it all.

Closely guarded and folded in lavender shreds
Lie reams of kind words that might have been said;
And laid as neat as the rows of the sepulcher tombs
The good deeds undone have met their doom.
My hall is secluded, no bright light of day
Creeps in to cheer or lighten the way;
Yet here I retire; and for hours I cringe,
Searching and scraping with broken wings,
Seeking solace -- forgotten to come
To the hall of regretted things.





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