I CAN never see the sun walk in the dawn
On a lawn
Where the lark sang mad with rapture as he came
Robed in flame
Racing on to where the mountains' foreheads loom
Through the gloom,
Or notice him at evening give the sea
His last fee,
Or his burnished, ruddy, golden, peaceful sheen
Tread the green,
While the wood with long and longer shadow bends
As he wends.
And my lips will never blow an oaten pipe,
Or the ripe
Glowing berries crush between them from the brake,
Where they make
Such a picture that the gods might know delight
At the sight.
For I've sat my life away with pen and rule
On a stool,
Totting little lines of figures, and so will,
Tho' the chill
And the languor of grey hairs upon my brow
Mocks me now.
And sometimes while I work I lift my eyes
To the skies,
To the foot or two of heaven which I trace
In the space
That a grimy window grudges to the spot
Where I tot.
And I ask the God who made me and the sun,
What I've done
To be buried in this dark and dreary cave
Like a grave,
While the world laughs in scorn now and then
At my pen.
Moving swiftly up and down the columned lines,
Lists of wines
And their prices, tho' the grape I never sip,
For my lip
Is divorced from that enjoyment as from those
That I'd choose.
But I'll sit and work my utmost and not budge,
Tho' a grudge
Is ever growing in the bosom of a clod
'Gainst the God
Who condemned him in his lifetime to grow fit
For the pit.
Insurrections [1909]
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