After a Reading of “Darkwater”
I did not think... I did not know...
What pale excuse is this I make
In answer to my brother’s woe,
Age-long, for deep injustice sake!
Across his mute and patient soul,
While I have gone my heedless way,
The shadows of a fate might roll
That deepened night and darkened day.
But I have read a burning page,
That glowed with white and soul-wrung fire,
And now no more I may engage
My conscience with a feeble hire.
For all the wrong I did not heed,
Chance-born in happier paths to live,
I cry unto my brother’s need
One word of love and shame... forgive!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 14, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
“After a Reading of ‘Darkwater’” originally appeared in the August 1920 issue of The Crisis.
Elizabeth Curtis Holman
Elizabeth Curtis Holman was born on August 12, 1879 in Hartford, Connecticut. Known for her translations of selections of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, her poems were published in The Crisis and other literary magazines.