Gamaliel Bradford poems

Gamaliel Bradford(9 October 1863 - 11 April 1932 / Boston, Massachusetts)

Leaves

- by Gamaliel Bradford 32

Down come the leaves,
Like fleeting years,
Or idle tears
Of love that grieves.

A tinkling trill,
A pallid flight
Like brief delight --
And all is still.

Hunger

- by Gamaliel Bradford 29

I've been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a
saint,
Their bend of weary knees and their con-
tortions long and faint,
And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred
thousand pins,
A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins.

I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell,
Where you tell and tell your beads because you've
nothing else to tell,
Where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild
fantastic tricks,
Is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix.

I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is
torn
With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
There are moments when I would untread the paths
that I have trod.
I'm a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.