Beached

It is not easy for this one

Who has, in vain, attempted all

To finally succeed in none

Before the well-spring of this life

Has half run dry.

I often wonder why

Success succeeds with others

But fails with me, continually,

To leave me floundering in the drift

Of half-accomplished goals,

With failed attempts at people...

Who could not ever find the fault

That left them beached

Among the shoals.

 

Some day, cut free from all this

Bastardry, to the sane song of a

Psaltery, in wind and sun and rain;

The pain might ease or cease

In the bright light of futility,

And we might start again those things

The lack of which has laid the song

This dim glimmer brings.

 

David Lewis Paget