“They knew I had it—once! Do you remember
What an upstanding Ajax I was then?
And what an eye I had? I scorched ’em with it.
I scared ’em; and they knew I was a giant.
I knew it, also; and if I had known
One other thing, I should have gone down then
Upon my knees for strength—I who believed
Myself to be secure. They knew a little,
But they knew nothing of what I know now.
A year before you found what’s left of me,
That evening in the street, I should have said
My way was blank and ruinous to the end,
But there was more to be, Glory to God!
There was to be a more revealing end
Than that—an end that once had been for me
The bitterest end of all—and is not so.
For in the music I have heard since then
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