ON A LOST OPPORTUNITY <br />We might, if you had willed, have conquered Heaven. <br />Once only in our lives before the gate <br />Of Paradise we stood, one fortunate even, <br />And gazed in sudden rapture through the grate. <br />And, while you stood astonished, I, our fate <br />Venturing, pushed the latch and found it free. <br />There stood the tree of knowledge fair and great <br />Beside the tree of life. One instant we <br />Stood in that happy garden, guardianless. <br />My hands already turned towards the tree <br />And in another moment we had known <br />The taste of joy and immortality <br />And been ourselves as gods. But in distress <br />You thrust me back with supplicating arms <br />And eyes of terror, till the impatient sun <br />Had time to set and till the heavenly host <br />Rushed forth on us with clarions and alarms <br />And cast us out for ever, blind and lost.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-love-sonnets-of-proteus-part-iii-gods-and-false-gods-lvii/
