by Luis Dato
By nearest chance, one day, I stood before
An altar by the meeting of the ways,
My young heart, heavy, sighting as of yours,
Filled with the nausea of the present days;
How long ago, and how impossible
It seemed to bridge the world with my heart’s cry;
I knelt and prayed beneath the ancient spell
Of faith and youth I feared without to die.
Long had I lost, nor missed my loss of grace,
With wrong I wallowed, intimate with sin,
When as I browsed with folly face to face,
I saw a flowered coffin ushered in.
And then, O miracle, to me was clear,
The folly of my wish, the empty haste,
For Thou alone endured whose word to hear,
I turned away to find a desert waste.
