r
Caught by sharp roofs in a narrow net of sky.

XI

WHEN CHILDHOOD DIED

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
Anaesthetized.

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.

XII

ALL THAT I WAS I AM

Hateful it seems now, yet was I not happy?
Starved of the things I loved, I did not know
I loved them, and was happy lacking them.
If bitterness comes now (and that is hell)
It is when I forget that I was happy,
Accusing Fate, that sits and nods and laughs,
Because I was not born a bird or tree.
Let accusation sleep, lest God's own finger
Point angry from the cloud in which He hides.
Who may regret what was, since it has made
Himself himself? All that I was I am,
And the old childish joy now lives in me
At sight of a green field or a green tree.

THE SHOCK

Thinking of these, of beautiful brief things,
Of things that are of sense and spirit made,
Of meadow flowers, dense hedges and dark bushes
With roses trailing over nests of thrushes;

Of dews so pure and bright and flush'd and cool,
And like the flowers as brief as beautiful;
Thinking of the tall grass and daisies tall
And whispered music of the waving bents;

Of these that like a simple child I love
Since they are life and life is flowers and grass;
Thinking of trees, and water at their feet
Answering the trees with murmur childlike sweet;

Thinking of those high thoughts that passed like the wind
Yet left their brightness lying on the mind,
As the white blossoms the raw airs shake down
That lie awhile yet lovely on the chill grass;

Thinking of the dark, where all these end like cloud,
And the stars watch like Knights to Honour vowed,
Of