I find it full of change,
An ever-varied diet,
As piquant as 'tis strange.
Wild thoughts are always flying,
Like sparks across my brain,
Now flashing out, now dying,
To kindle soon again.
Fine fancies set me thrilling,
And subtle monsters creep
Before my sight unwilling:
They even haunt my sleep.
One broad, perpetual riot
Enfolds me night and day.
You think my life is quiet?
You don't know what you say.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
HUNGER
I'VE been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a
saint,
Their bend of weary knees and their con-
tortions long and faint,
And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred
thousand pins,
A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins.
I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell,
Where you tell and tell your beads because you've
nothing else to tell,
Where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild
fantastic tricks,
Is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix.
I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is
torn
With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
There are moments when I would untread the paths
that I have trod.
I'm a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
EXIT GOD
Of old our father's God was real,
Something they almost saw,
Which kept them to a stern ideal
And scourged them into awe.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29