THE PANGS that guard the gates of joy, <br />the naked sword that will be kist, <br />how distant seem’d they to the boy, <br />white flashes in the rosy mist! <br /> <br />Ah, not where tender play was screen’d <br />in the light heart of leafy mirth <br />of that obdurate might we ween’d <br />that shakes the sure repose of earth. <br /> <br />And sudden, ’twixt a sun and sun, <br />the veil of dreaming is withdrawn: <br />lo, our disrupt dominion <br />and mountains solemn in the dawn; <br /> <br />hard paths that chase the dayspring’s white, <br />and glooms that hold the nether heat: <br />oh, strange the world upheaved from night, <br />oh, dread the life before our feet!<br /><br />Christopher John Brennan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-pangs-that-guard-the-gates-of-joy/
