Strange as it may sound, this is one poem that quite literally wrote itself. There was no planning, no previous thought involved – I simply sat down one day with a blank sheet of paper and pen, the words came unbidden into my head, and I wrote them down, acting as little more than a thoroughfare along which the verses coursed, fully-formed, from my mind and onto the paper. If only all poetry were as easy to write!
BORNE INTO TOMORROW
The webs of Night draw back their gowns
As rosy clouds of Morning
Pass softly through the waking sky,
While still the sun lies yawning
Beneath a drape of starry sleep
From which the dreams of Evening peep.
But mine are dreams from far beyond,
Sent ever by the future,
Like golden keys to shrouded doors
Of Nature’s hidden sutures.
For these, my life must make its ways
Through shadow worlds and lightless days.
Alone I stand – my world has gone –
The past was mine, not present.
Now shades of Death lie all around.
As I – a humble peasant –
Move slowly through and ever on,
Until my dreams at last are done.
These worlds are strange, unknown to me,
For these I have no feeling.
And only stars may see my grief
From Heaven’s spangled ceiling,
As on I pass through sombre dawns
While e’er for Light my spirit mourns.
But I must bear my silent doom
In alien surroundings,
And suffer as the world demands
Of me – a lonely foundling,
With dreams for which my spirit lives,
For which my life I freely give.
And so, though oft my chosen way
Is dismal and despairing,
I must prevail through dark terrains
Within this world uncaring,
Through deathly vales where shadows loom,
Before my dreams can light their gloom.
Yet this is but a twilit zone
Of deep, forbidding sorrow,
Which all must e’er endure if they
Are borne into Tomorrow,
Until their dreams are each fulfilled,
As Destiny and Fate have willed.
But when at last my pathways end,
When dreams are dreams no longer,
My world will call, with songs of Peace,
My spirit – free and stronger.
And I shall go, and this will seem
To be at most a bitter dream.
