Scraps

 

Answer me spirit I said to the shade,

Tell me of things that are waiting to be,

What now awaits in the years that will come,

And what from the shadows is following me.

 

What of this world that my heart holds so dear,

What of my hopes of my dreams and my fears,

Will I have joy that will pleasure my soul,

And will I know pain in the valley of tears.

 

What can I change while my eyes cannot see,

Stygian darkness and bright blinding light,

First to the footpath and first to the stile,

With no one to tell me of which way is right.

 

Storms on the mountain and rain in the vale,

Locked in my prison I reach for the key,

Life has encompassed me bound me in chains,

But fortune and learning are setting me free.

 

Age has not taught me, I drift through my days,

But scraps from life’s table are intellects food,

Wisdom is caught in the net of the mind,

Where all must be wholesome and nothing is crude.

 

And so down the days and the months and the years,

For the scraps from life’s table we bicker and fight,

The books and papers are scoured and scanned,

We read in with horror and hear with delight.

 

There are books of great learning and heretic tomes,

And words of great enmity sounding the drum,

But knowing and reading I’m forced to conclude,

That nothing in knowledge can tell what’s to come.

 

So humour me spirit and look with my mind,

Look deep in my soul and see men with my eyes,

See why I can love with both passion and pride,

But find it so easy to hate and despise.

 

So take to the weigh-scales the burden I bare,

The fears of the cynic the hopes of a fool,

The dreams of child and the words of a whore,

The mercy of god and the wit of a mule.

 

And so to the footpath and so to the stile,

For though I may stumble life beckons me on,

The years are for me and for me to possess,

Till the scraps from their table are eaten and gone.