A Discovery

REUBEN POGSON.

I STRUGGLED oft with an unseen foe.
I fought as one that beateth the air.
As I gripped it hard and held it so,
It oozed through my hands, and left me there
With a foolish stare on my face of woe.

Pain of body or pain of mind,
Though formless it opposed me still.
The why and the where seemed hard to find
Of this nameless foe, that tried to kill
My hope to follow the behest of Mind.

Reveal, O God! in my pain I cried,
The seeming foe, that I may progress.
What part of self have I deified,
That now thy justice, demands redress
In the painful stress of a peace denied?

When next I strove in the dark of night,
I prayed the Light of the world to come.
And through the shutters a gleam of light
Revealed my foe, and guiltily dumb
In the shadow's gloom I saw, in its flight,
My Adamic self in hopeless plight.