Hunger

Gamaliel Bradford 1863 (Boston, Massachusetts) – 1932



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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 12, 2023

40 sec read
117

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXAXBB CXCXDD XEEXFF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 691
Words 131
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 6, 6

Gamaliel Bradford

Gamaliel Bradford was an American biographer, critic, poet, and dramatist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the sixth of seven men called Gamaliel Bradford in unbroken succession, of whom the first, Gamaliel Bradford, was a great-grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. His grandfather, Dr. Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, was a noted abolitionist. more…

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