Afterword on the Book of Life

I dripped my blood on the final word

To give it a mark of mine,

And show that the words you’ve read tonight

Are the words of a bloody time.

If you think I’m bitter and broken up

And the title’s only a lure,

Then read it again in the Sydney Sun

And go for the total cure.

 

You read the book on a whim, you say,

You’d never have picked it up,

You feel you’ve drunk from a brackish spring

The words from an empty cup,

But watch the faces of tiny girls

Who die in the madman’s spell,

Or bear the scar of their tiny lives

To grow to an empty shell.

 

The cure has given you nought, you say,

Or nothing that wasn’t known,

Only the thoughts that you didn’t need

As you sat on your thoughtless throne.

A cure is only of use to those

Who know that there’s something wrong,

So why did you open the title page,

And why did you carry on?

 

If all I’ve done is to underline

The things you already knew,

Or touched you once in a tender spot

That started a tear in you,

Or drawn you out in a sympathy

You swore you’d lost for good,

I’ve done all I ever meant to do…

And all that I thought I could.

 

David Lewis Paget