The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot

Gertrude's Prayer

That which is marred at birth Time shall not ment,

Nor water out of bitter well make clean;

An evil thing returneth at the end,

Or elseway walketh in our blood unseen.

Whereby the more is sorrow in certaine -

Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe.

To-bruized be that slender, sterting spray

Out of the oake's rind that should betide

A branch of girt and goodliness, straightaway

Her spring is turned on herself, and wried

And knotted like some gall or veiney wen. -

Dayspring mishandled cometh not agen.

Noontime repayeth never morning-bliss -

Sith noon to morn is incomparable;

And, so it be our dawning goth amiss,

None other after-hour serveth well.

Ah!  Jesu-Moder, pitie my oe paine -

Dayspring mishandled cometh not againe!

Rudyard Kipling

(30th December 1865 - 18th January 1936)