#maryt

So many times I have felt them Lord. The arrows (a coward dies often), so many times, And worse, oh often worse than this. Neither breeze nor bird Stirring the hazed peace through with the day climbs. And slower even than the arrows, the few sounds that come, Falling, as across water, from where farther off than the hills The archers move in a different world in the same Kingdom. Oh can the noise of angels, The beat and whirring between Thy kingdoms, Be ever by such cropped feathers raised? Not though With the wings of the morning may I fly from Thee; for it is Thy Kingdom where (and the wind so still now) I stand in pain; and, entered with pain as always, Thy Kingdom that on these erring shafts comes.

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Saint Sebastian

W. S. (William Stanley) Merwin  1927-2019

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