Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A LOST LETTER, by CLEMENT WILLIAM SCOTT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A LOST LETTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Just read this letter, old friend of mine
Last Line: "I had lived far better and died in peace!"
Subject(s): Death; Grief; Love; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


JUST read this letter, old friend of mine;
I picked it up upon Margate Pier,
In a whirling world of women and wine;
'T was blotted and blurred with a fallen tear.
Come, think one minute of years ago,
When the chance was with us -- a soul to save,
The whim was in us to love, you know,
But the woman, she fell to a fool or knave.

"'T is easy to picture the tortured heart
That faced despair and a grief like this."
She saw her lover unloved depart
And turn again to a hateful kiss.
"Had I been loved by a man like you" --
O weary woman! O fearful fate!
'T is a passionate cry; but it strikes me through,
Who sigh too soon, but who love too late.

"Who was the woman?" I seem to trace
Her footprints here in Vanity Fair:
A mother, perchance, with an earnest face;
A wife with a glory of Titian hair;
A soul perplexed, and a faith at stake,
A life nigh lost -- there are thousands such
Who face the world, when their heart-strings break
For the one kind word and the tender touch!

Who was the man? What matter at all?
'T is man who ruins and sows the tears;
'T is men who tempt, but women who fall,
And are never absolved in the deathless years.
The least we can do, O brothers, is this;
Whilst love is with us, and life seems down,
We can soothe the sad with a gentle kiss,
And dry the eyes that our sins can drown!

Go back, lost letter of wild despair,
I will cast you forth on the infinite sea;
But the day glides on, and the Margate air
Is piercing sweet to the world and me.
But still I can never forget -- can you? --
That cry that nothing can soothe or cease;
"Had I been loved by a man like you,
I had lived far better and died in peace!"





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