We have tested and tasted too much, lover- <br />Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. <br />But here in the Advent-darkened room <br />Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea <br />Of penance will charm back the luxury <br />Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom <br />The knowledge we stole but could not use. <br /> <br />And the newness that was in every stale thing <br />When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking <br />Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill <br />Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking <br />Of an old fool will awake for us and bring <br />You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins <br />And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins. <br /> <br />O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching <br />For the difference that sets an old phrase burning- <br />We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning <br />Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching. <br />And we'll hear it among decent men too <br />Who barrow dung in gardens under trees, <br />Wherever life pours ordinary plenty. <br />Won't we be rich, my love and I, and <br />God we shall not ask for reason's payment, <br />The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges <br />Nor analyse God's breath in common statement. <br />We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages <br />Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour- <br />And Christ comes with a January flower. <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by Andrew Mayers<br /><br />Patrick Kavanagh<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/advent/
