Beside the path, on either hand, <br />To keep the garden beds, <br />The rusted iron pickets stand <br />Thin shafts and pointed heads. <br /> <br />And straight my spirit swooping goes <br />Across the waves of time <br />Till I'm a little boy who knows <br />A fence is made to climb; <br /> <br />And bed and lawn and gloomy space <br />By thicket overgrown <br />Are wonderlands where I may trace <br />The beckoning Unknown. <br /> <br />But O the cruelty that strikes <br />My elder heart with dread <br />The writhing form upon the spikes, <br />The trickled pool of red! <br /> <br />So, every day I pass and see <br />The fence the urchin scales, <br />The little boy stands up in me <br />To curse the iron rails.<br /><br />John Le Gay Brereton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-child-impaled/
