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Spender, Stephen - A Childhood
Identifier
029155
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
A Childhood
I am glad I met you on the edge
Of your barbarous childhood
In what purity of pleasure
You danced alone like a peasant
For the stamping joy's own sake!
How, set in their sandy sockets,
Your clear, truthful, transparent eyes
Shone out of the black frozen landscape
Of those gray-clothed schoolboys!
How your shy hand offered
The total generosity
Of original unforewarned fearful trust,
In a world grown old in iron hatred!
I am glad to set down
The first and ultimate you,
Your inescapable soul. Although
It fade like a fading smile
Or light falling from faces