IF I COULD KNOW

 I  would be richer  by a thousand fold

If I could know why certain poetry

Has power to break my heart . If I were told

Why suddenly an ache should throb in me

As some sheer line of beauty ,some turned phrase

Where the hands of a word-jeweler has set

His gems of living fire that through my days

Must be a thing my heart cannot forget .

Keat’s nightingale ,that strange ,wild , deathless bird ,

Will call to me forever down the years :

Through Shelley’s odes , like some insistent word ,

I shall hear the sea’s voice heavy with its tears.

As Wordsworth “wandered lonely as a cloud,”

I ,too ,shall wander ,and shall ever go

Lonely and hurt by beauty though the crowd

Be shrill about me . Why ? I do not know .

Jan Bagwell

God Bless !

With God , I have a home .