And how am I to face the odds, Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid, In a world I never made |
And like a skylit water stood, The bluebells in the azured wood |
And malt does more than Milton can To justify the ways of God to man |
Ensanguining the skies, How heavily it dies, Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound, Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground, Falls the remorseful day |
From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I |
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat |
I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made |
Little is the luck I've had, And oh, 'tis comfort small - To think that many another lad - Has had no luck at all |
Nature not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write |
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer. Then the world seemed none so bad, and I myself a sterling lad. And down in lovely muck I've lain, happy -- till I woke up again. |
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again |
This is for all ill-treated fellows - Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not |