Apology
60 lines✦
e not angry with me that I bearYour colours everywhere,All through each crowded street,And meetThe wonder-light in every eye,As I go by. Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,Blinded by rainbow haze,The stuff of happiness,No less,Which wraps me in its glad-hued foldsOf peacock golds. Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved wayFlushes beneath its gray.My steps fall ringed with light,So bright,It seems a myriad suns are strownAbout the town. Around me is the sound of steepled bells,And rich perfumed smellsHang like a wind-forgotten cloud,And shroudMe from close contact with the world.I dwell impearled. You blazon me with jewelled insignia.A flaming nebulaRims in my life. And yetYou setThe word upon me, unconfessedTo go unguessed. A Petition I pray to be the tool which to your handLong use has shaped and moulded till it beApt for your need, and, unconsideringly,You take it for its service. I demandTo be forgotten in the woven strandWhich grows the multi-coloured tapestryOf your bright life, and through its tissues lieA hidden, strong, sustaining, grey-toned band.I wish to dwell around your daylight dreams,The railing to the stairway of the clouds,To guard your steps securely up, where streamsA faery moonshine washing pale the crowdsOf pointed stars. Remember not wherebyYou mount, protected, to the far-flung sky. A Blockhead Before me lies a mass of shapeless days,Unseparated atoms, and I mustSort them apart and live them. Sifted dustCovers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays,There are none, ever. As a monk who praysThe sliding beads asunder, so I thrustEach tasteless particle aside, and justBegin again the task which never stays.And I have known a glory of great suns,When days flashed by, pulsing with joy and fire!Drunk bubbled wine in goblets of desire,And felt the whipped blood laughing as it runs!Spilt is that liquor, my too hasty handThrew down the cup, and did not understand.
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