Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VOLITAIRE TO A YOUNG MAN, by BRADLEY WELCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VOLITAIRE TO A YOUNG MAN, by                    
First Line: You say, my friend, you do not understand
Last Line: Delights my ear. Perhaps you too, were caught.
Subject(s): Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet De; Yale University


You say, my friend, you do not understand
How God (your God) can let you suffer pain,
Why He permits the wrong to conquer right,
Or rears a hope, to let it die again.
Well, last night, in haste, I crushed a rose
That lay o'erbowed upon its slender tree,
While rushing heedless to the evening tryst.
'Twas not my fault. Perhaps He does not see.

You say, my friend, you do not understand
How God (your God) can strike your guiltless breast,
How He can bear to wither all your hopes,
Why He destroys your good and leaves the rest.
Well, 'twas but an afternoon ago,
I wandered through a meadow, musing, sad.
A butterfly disturbed my thought. In rage
I struck. It fell. Perhaps your good is bad.

You say, my friend, you do not understand
How God (your God), who knows the worst in all,
Can let this tragedy of things play on,
And not, in mercy, let the curtain fall.
Well, in yonder cage, there pines a bird,
And better far for him, if all were naught.
And yet his color charms my eye, his voice
Delights my ear. Perhaps you too, were caught.





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