I have been young, and now am not too old; <br />And I have seen the righteous forsaken, <br />His health, his honour and his quality taken. <br />This is not what we were formerly told. <br /> <br />I have seen a green country, useful to the race, <br />Knocked silly with guns and mines, its villages vanished, <br />Even the last rat and the last kestrel banished - <br />God bless us all, this was peculiar grace. <br /> <br />I knew Seraphina; Nature gave her hue, <br />Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden. <br />I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden; <br />She turned to harlotry; - this I took to be new. <br /> <br />Say what you will, our God sees how they run. <br />These disillussionments are His curious proving <br />That He loves humanity and will go on loving; <br />Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun.<br /><br />Edmund Blunden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/report-on-experience/
