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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE GUARDIANS, by VIOLA CHITTENDEN WHITE Poet's Biography
First Line: When step by step fate beats me farther back
Last Line: With mute, appraising eyes, -- and turn aside.
Subject(s): Wellesley College
First Line: When step by step fate beats me farther back
Last Line: With mute, appraising eyes, -- and turn aside.
Subject(s): Wellesley College
WHEN step by step fate beats me farther back
Until I stand upon the ultimate,
It is not will nor instrument I lack
To put myself beyond the spoils of fate;
Nor duty to a Maker that made ill,
Nor judgment from the lips of living men,
Nor end of what I only might fulfil,
Nor pain of endless doom arrests me then.
I hold my sword because, the chasm past,
I fear the encounter with those mighty dead
That made each bloody slope unto the last
A pasture-land where climbing flocks are fed.
I fear lest they come, vast and justified,
With mute, appraising eyes, -- and turn aside.
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