EARTH buffets and harasses Her children, day by day; Pricked on by harsh endeavor, Debarred of prayer and play, Chasing a Shade for ever, Man fares by perilous passes, Till he be bent and gray. But Life, -- how deep the kindness That saves us from despair! Hath eke her garden closes Where all is calm and fair; Some place of rest and roses Where man puts off his blindness Of canker and of care. There music sounds, clear-hearted, And star-eyed women smile, There friends, estranged in seeming, Forget their former guile; Above, to help the dreaming, The clouds are soft disparted By warm, soft moons the while Into this sacred haven Of health and happy lure, Come marred and haunted faces To taste a pleasure pure; In this most dear of places What word or wish is craven These walls may not immure. So, frayed upon sharp edges Of knives that cut full deep, Our own lost souls pursuing, We may thereafter creep Away from sordid doing, Behind these holy hedges For solace and for sleep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RAT by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE EVENING WIND by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT WHY THUS LONGING by HARRIET WINSLOW SEWALL AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS YOU MAY REMEMBER by LULU PIPER AIKEN EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 14. THE POWERFUL ATTRACTION by PHILIP AYRES LESBIA'S COMPLAINT AGAINST THYRISIS HIS INCONSTANCY; A SONNET by PHILIP AYRES |