Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN by JOHN COWPER POWYS

First Line: AH, POET - YOU, WHO SING
Last Line: WHEN THEY TAKE AWAY OUR TEARS.
Subject(s): GRIEF; NIGHT; POETRY & POETS; SINGING & SINGERS; SLEEP; TEARS; SORROW; SADNESS; BEDTIME;

Ah, poet -- you, who sing
"The days that are no more" --
There is a bitterer sting
In the days that @3never were.@1

For lying alone in the night,
Hearing the wind at play,
I know such days to have been my right.
Yet they came and took them away.

I never knew them! They stole
The sorrow out of my sleep;
The crying out of my dreams.
I cannot even weep.

They came and took them -- they stole
The longing that was my right,
The grief that was my child.
They left me alone in the night.

"Never was" has a sharper sting
Than "No more", as roll the years;
And the gods take everything
When they take away our tears.



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