War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces/The Ghost of Youth
THE GHOST OF YOUTH
IN the cold black hours of the evening timeThat finish the empty day,When a man can sit and dream againOf the joys he threw away.When the curtain of things is lifted upAnd the naked life we see,There comes the ghost of a boy, long dead,And sits by the fire with me.
A boy with the clean young hope of lifeAflame in his ardent eyes,And oh, the contempt that he feels for meAnd my hoary blasphemies;Sitting there by my dying fireHis eyes light up and glow,And he talks to me as I used to talkOh God! how long ago.
The ghost of the boy that I was thenSits still and talks to meWith his passionate love of a half-seen truthAnd his sweet absurdity.All that I thought I could nearly seeAll that I used to hear,Before the curtain was rent and I sawThe naked life too clear.
Ere I saw too clear the awful fearAnd the horror of emptiness,Ere I knew too well that the pit of hellWas a pit that was bottomless,And knew there was never a king in hell,In heaven never a throne,Only the void and a shivering soul,That drifts by itself alone.