Description
‘Last night,
I groaned under the bitter sternness of Reason
She would not let me look up, or smile, or hope;
She could not rest
unless I were altogether crushed, cowed,
broken in, and broken down
Reason might be right;
yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her,
to rush from under her rod
and give a truant hour to Imagination;
our divine Hope
We shall and must break bounds at intervals,
despite the terrible revenge that awaits our return
Often has Reason turned me out by night,
in mid-winter, on cold snow,
flinging for sustenance the gnawed bone,
dogs had forsaken;
sternly as she vowed,
her stores held nothing more for me,
harshly denied my right to ask better things
Then looking up,
I saw in the sky a head amidst circling stars,
of which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray,
sympathetic and attent
Imagination has descended with quiet flight to the waste,
bringing all around her a sphere of air borrowed of eternal summer,
bringing perfume of flowers which cannot fade,
fragrance of trees whose fruit is life,
bringing breezes pure
from a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it
A composite feeling of blended strength and pain
wound itself wirily round my heart,
sustained or restrained it’s throbbings,
and made me fit for the day’s work
I lifted my head’
VaL Smit ©
CYAN: An Anthology of Confessional Poetry, University of Gour Banga
