Monday Poetry

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."  - Mr. Keating, Dead Poets Society


I thought it would be nice to start of each work week with a little poetry.  This one comes from the much longer poem,  The ballad of Reading Gaol by the great Oscar Wilde. 

A little background: he had been convicted of homsexual acts, which was a crime in England in his day.  Prison was very hard on him and eventually contributed to his death.  But in that horrible stituation, he had an insight that changed his life.  This is my favorite part of the poem that explains Wilde's conversion.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain
Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
And some men make no moan: 

But God's eternal Laws are kind
And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
Its treasure to the Lord, 

And filled the unclean leper's house
With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?

-Oscar Wilde