424. Unsolved by John McCrae
J McCrae read by Classic Poetry Aloud: Giving voice to the poetry of the past.\nwww.classicpoetryaloud.com\n\n--------------------------------------------\n\nUnsolved\nby John McCrae (1872 \u2013 1918)\n\nAmid my books I lived the hurrying years,\n Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;\nAlike to me were human smiles and tears,\n I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,\nTill as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,\n God made me look into a woman's eyes;\nAnd I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,\n Knew in a moment that the eternal skies\nWere measured but in inches, to the quest\n That lay before me in that mystic gaze.\n"Surely I have been errant: it is best\n That I should tread, with men their human ways."\nGod took the teacher, ere the task was learned,\nAnd to my lonely books again I turned.\n\n\nFirst aired: 19 February 2008\n\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\n\nReading \xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2009