through a glass darkly - jamie sexton holme

Through A Glass Darkly
by Jamie Sexton Holme


What can be learned of any life
Except a blend of facts and lies?
The secret springs that move the soul
Are not disclosed to curious eyes,


And glib biographers who think
That death reveals all hidden places
Perform autopsies on our hearts
And find but immaterial traces.


Death is not sound enough a sleep
To lose the guard we keep so well.
The letters that we dared not keep
Were those that brought us heaven or hell.


The legends that you hear of me,
Are only what the world may know,
And while I know your heart is sad,
I cannot tell what made it so.


But let me see your dearest book --
The one most worn...its well-thumbed pages --
The marginal lines your pencil traced --
Shall tell me more than all the sages.


And let me know whose dreams you've shared --
By what Pierian fountains tarried --
What lines you say by heart at night --
Not where you've lived, nor whom you married!