Poetry Archives

I can recall the day
  When childhood died.
I had grown thin and tall
  And eager-eyed.

Such a false happiness
  Had seized me then;
A child, I saw myself
  Man among men.

Now I see that I was
  Ignorant, surprised,
As one for the surgeon’s knife
  Anæsthetized.

So that I did not know
  What loomed before,
Nor how, a child, I became
  A child no more.

The world’s sharpened knife
  Cut round my heart;
Then something was taken
  And flung apart.

I did not, could not know
  What had been done.
Under some evil drag
  I lived as one

At home in the seeming world;
  Then slowly came
Through years and years to myself
  And was no more the same.

I know now an ill thing was done
  To a young child
By the world’s wary knife
  Maimed and defiled.

I can recall the day
  Almost without anger or pain,
When childhood did not die
  But was slain.