ΝΤΕΪΒΙΝΤ ΓΚΑΣΚΟΫΝ

DAVID GASCOYNE

THE FAULT

To live, and to respire
And to aspire, to feel the fire
Urge upward through the mortal part and gain
Through burnt-out veins still higher!
But who has lived an hour
In the condemned condition of our blood
And not known how a wound like a black flower,
Exquisite and irreparable, can break
Apart in the immortal in us, or not felt
An intimation of the fault: to be alive!