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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
REFLECTIONS ON MY OWN SITUATION, WRITTEN IN T-TT-NGST-NE HOUSE, by ANN CANDLER Poet's Biography First Line: How many years are past and gone Last Line: But guide me with thy care. Subject(s): Grief; Solitude; Sorrow; Sadness; Loneliness | |||
How many years are past and gone, How alter'd I appear, How many strange events have known, Since first I enter'd here! Within these dreary walls confin'd, A lone recluse, I live, And, with the dregs of human kind, A niggard alms receive. Uncultivated, void of sense, Unsocial, insincere, Their rude behavior gives offence, Their language wounds the ear. Disgusting objects swarm around, Throughout confusions reign; Where feuds and discontent abound, Remonstrance proves in vain. No sympathising friend I find, Unknown is friendship here; Not one to soothe, or calm the mind, When overwhelm'd with care: Peace, peace, my heart, thy duty calls, With cautious steps proceed: Beyond these melancholy walls, I've found a friend indeed! I gaze on numbers in distress, Compare their state with mine: Can I reflect, and not confess A providence divine? And I might bend beneath the rod, And equal want deplore, But that a good and gracious God Is pleas'd to give me more: My gen'rous friends, with feeling heart, Remove the pondrous weight, And those impending ills avert Which want and woes create. Yet what am I, that I should be Thus honor'd and carest? And why such favors heap'd on me, And with such friendship blest? Absorb'd in thought I often sate Within my lonely cell, And mark'd the strange mysterious fate That seem'd to guide me still. When keenest sorrow urg'd her claim, When evils threaten'd dread, Some unexpected blessing came, And rais'd my drooping head. In youth strange fairy tales I've read, Of magic skill and pow'r, And mortals, in their sleep, convey'd To some enchanted tow'r. In this obscure and lone retreat, Conceal'd from vulgar eyes, Two rival genii us'd to meet And counterplots devise. The evil genius, prone to ill, Mischievous schemes invents, Pursues the fated mortal still, And ev'ry woe augments. Insulted with indignant scorn, Aw'd by tyrannic sway, A prey to grief each rising morn, And cheerless all the day. But fate and fortune in their scenes A pleasing change decree: The friendly genius intervenes, And sets the captive free. Content and freedom thus regain'd, Depriv'd of both before; So great the blessing, when obtain'd, What can he wish for more? The tales these eastern writers feign Like facts to me appear; The fabled suff'rings they contain, I find no fictions here. And since, in those romantic lays, My miseries combine, To bless my lengthen'd wane of days, Their bright reverse be mine. Look down, O God! in me behold How helpless mortals are, Nor leave me friendless, poor, and old, But guide me with thy care. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN ABEYANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV IN A VACANT HOUSE by PHILIP LEVINE SUNDAY ALONE IN A FIFTH FLOOR APARTMENT, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS by WILLIAM MATTHEWS SILENCE LIKE COOL SAND by PAT MORA THE HONEY BEAR by EILEEN MYLES |
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