Nor looks that backward life so bare to me, My later youth, and ways I've wandered through, But touched with innocent grace, the purring bee O'er the maple log, the white-heaped cherry tree That hummed all day in the sun, the April blue; Yet hardly now one ray the Forward hath To show where sorrow rests and rest begins, Although I check my feet nor walk to wrath Through days of crime, and grosser shadowings Of evil done in the dark, but fearfully Mid unfulfilled yet unrelinquished sins That hedge me in and press about my path Like purple-poison flowers of stramony With their dull opiate breath and dragon wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CEMETERY BY THE SEA by PAUL VALERY AN ODE, PARAPHRASED: THE CUP by ANACREON LORD WALTER'S WIFE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG by FRANCIS BRET HARTE THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER RUINED CHURCH by F. W. BATESON ASLEEP, ASLEEP; MARTYDOM OF SAINT STEPHEN by LUCY ANN BENNETT |