YOU never understood, O unknown one, Why it was I repaid Your devoted friendship and delicate ministrations First with diminished thanks, Afterward by gradually withdrawing my presence from you, So that I might not be compelled to thank you, And then with silence which followed upon Our final Separation. You had cured my diseased soul. But to cure it You saw my disease, you knew my secret, And that is why I fled from you. For though when our bodies rise from pain We kiss forever the watchful hands That gave us wormwood, while we shudder For thinking of the wormwood, A soul that's cured is a different matter, For there we'd blot from memory The soft-toned words, the searching eyes, And stand forever oblivious, Not so much of the sorrow itself As of the hand that healed it. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ENGLISH GRAVEYARD IN MALACCA by KAREN SWENSON TO TIRZAH, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE LIBERTY FOR ALL by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 26 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN PSALM 2 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE ON MR. FREDERICK PORTER'S ROOM OF PICTURES, 1930 by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN QUESTION AND ANSWER by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING ON THE CAUSE, CONSQUENCE AND CURE OF SPIRITUAL PRIDE by JOHN BYROM |