Prologue And Epilogue 

1

I know I have been here before
In this deserted ante-room,
And seen through every swinging door
The silent figures go and come.
I am as poor as once before
When I came begging in this den,
But when I leave, or through what door
I pass, is just as vague as then.
The others never speak a word—
A woman passes through the hall
As if on air, and makes no sound
And does not hear me when I call;
Like one who hugs a secret fast
She passes with averted face;
Beyond the door a starry sky,
And sure at last that there’s the place,
I cry to pass, but silently
The door swings back, I may not go,
Another ghost behind me treads
A soldier with a face I know,
And through the door by which he came
The golden fields stretch far away—
Oh, magic, magic, all around
Starlight is interblent with day.

The labyrinth of images
Again makes all my labours vain,
Vainly I question and pursue
The servants of the law again,
And yet I have been here before
And shivered in this ante-room,
And flung myself at every door,
And seen the angels go and come,
And once before I found a way
Into a midnight black with storm,
But what did I care for night or day,
Or calm or tempest? I shall stay
Till to the magic I return.



Source: O'Connor, Frank; Three Old Brothers and Other Poems; 1936;
London; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.; p.36