Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ONE OF MANY (2), by ALICE CARY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ONE OF MANY (2), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I knew a man - I know him still
Last Line: There be more like him in the world.
Subject(s): Conduct Of Life


I KNEW a man -- I know him still
In part, in all I ever knew, --
Whose life runs counter to his will,
Leaving the things he fain would do,

Undone. His hopes are shapes of sands,
That cannot with themselves agree;
As one whose eager outstretched hands
Take hold on water -- so is he.

Fame is a bauble, to his ken;
Mirth cannot move his aspect grim;
The holidays of other men
Are only battle-days to him.

He locks his heart within his breast,
Believing life to such as he
Is but a change of ills, at best, --
A crossed and crazy tragedy.

His cheek is wan; his limbs are faint
With fetters which they never wore;
No wheel that ever crushed a saint,
But breaks his body o'er and o'er.

Though woman's grace he never sought
By tender look, or word of praise,
He dwells upon her in his thought,
With all a lover's lingering phrase.

A very martyr to the truth,
All that's best in him is belied;
Humble, yet proud withal; in sooth
His pride is his disdain of pride.

He sees in what he does amiss
A continuity of ill;
The next life dropping out of this,
Stained with its many colors still.

His kindliest pity is for those
Who are the slaves of guilty lusts;
And virtue, shining till it shows
Another's frailty, he distrusts.

Nature, he holds, since time began
Has been reviled, -- misunderstood;
And that we first must love a man
To judge him, -- be he bad or good.

Often his path is crook'd and low.
And is so in his own despite;
For still the path he meant to go
Runs straight, and level with the right.
No heart has he to strive with fate
For less things than our great men gone
Achieved, who, with their single weight,
Turned Time's slow wheels a century on.

His waiting silence is his prayer;
His darkness is his plea for light;
And loving all men everywhere
He lives, a more than anchorite.

O friends, if you this man should see,
Be not your scorn too hardly hurled,
Believe me, whatsoe'er he be,
There be more like him in the world.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net