Nor looks that backward life so bare to me, My later youth, and ways I've wandered through, But touched with innocent grace, the purring bee O'er the maple log, the white-heaped cherry tree That hummed all day in the sun, the April blue; Yet hardly now one ray the Forward hath To show where sorrow rests and rest begins, Although I check my feet nor walk to wrath Through days of crime, and grosser shadowings Of evil done in the dark, but fearfully Mid unfulfilled yet unrelinquished sins That hedge me in and press about my path Like purple-poison flowers of stramony With their dull opiate breath and dragon wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MISSING THE BO IN THE HENHOUSE by HAYDEN CARRUTH CAESAR'S LOST TRANSPORT SHIPS by ROBERT FROST FOREST FLOWERS by ROBERT FROST THE AWAKENING by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE GHOST OF DEACON BROWN by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE LAMP OF LIFE by AMY LOWELL DOMESDAY BOOK: HENRY BAKER, AT NEW YORK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |