When I Was Feeling So Low And Lonely Poem by Edmund Wong

It was upon a torpid summer night
When I was feeling so low and lonely,
As if my strength and courage were mortally defeated,
My hope and faith had melted away, and only
A crumpled soul I felt to be.
It was the same balmy breezes,
With which my mind used to flutter along;
The same limpid, starry sky,
Whose majestic canopy never failed to descend upon me,
However weary with care and toil.
But upon that night, on that same tuft
Of grassy bed, dewy from a refreshing, misty drizzle,
Nothing seemed to impress upon my gaze; my thought,
Having been wandering in obscurity, curtly halted,
As if with indignity it had decided to spurn my authority.
My senseless senses were all I had,
Rising from the ashes of all else whose lease
Had expired on me. Over the dale lay a host of daffodils,
Whose golden look in darkness matters none;
I used to enjoy so much a drawly walk to them,
But then no desire appealed to me,
Save a primal one- to sleep and dream, heaved me
Naturally to their restful company. It was then I realized
I was not alone, as the whistling wind
Gently patting me rustled the leafy boughs
Of that ancient, solitary oak, which had weathered
Many a deadly thunder, rain and storm,
Among a sea of birches, cherries and poplars,
And a good many others I had chanced upon
But never known. So far in sight but close at heart,
In nature’s harmony I found my own.
From my outward journey where I was lost,
I recovered the life-binding truth so vital to my mind,
Even though my love said no, and left me forever behind.