[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
Experience
Passion across his youth no storm had sent;
Nor Pain’s rough hand from him a cry compelled;
Calm had his life in grievous bondage held,
Till his poor soul with nothing to repent —
No dragon of slanted eye malevolent
To fight, grew sad, and then at last rebelled.
He cried to Fate: “Why is my task unspelled,
My good stern tutors kept in banishment?”
“Fain would I con and learn the blotted book —
That alphabet that almost tears erase,
The while sad human eyes upon it look,
And under rule and rod its meaning trace;
Be they by ease and happiness forsook,
Sweet Truth, the recompense, unveils her face.”
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 24
Editor’s notes:
con = (archaic) to examine or study carefully; to learn or memorise (distinct from other meanings of “con”: to defraud or swindle someone by gaining their confidence; an argument against a proposition; the act of steering a vessel; the place or post from where a vessel is steered)
fain = happily or gladly; ready or willing; obliged or compelled
unspelled = without rest (may also refer to breaking, dissolving, or reversing a magical spell)
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