I linger on the threshold of my youth. <br />If you could see me now as then I was, <br />A fair--faced frightened boy with eyes of truth <br />Scared at the world yet angry at its laws, <br />Plotting all plots, a blushing Cataline <br />Betrayed by his own cheeks, a misanthrope <br />In love with all things human and divine, <br />The very fool of fortune and high hope, <br />You would deny you knew me. Oh, the days <br />Of our absurd first manhood, rich in force, <br />Rich in desire of happiness and praise <br />Yet impotent in its heroic course, <br />And all for lack of that one worthless thing, <br />Knowledge of life and love and suffering!<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/esther-a-sonnet-sequence-xxvi/
