I read, it seemed, a thousand books.
The looks I took through windows tall and wide
did not hide from me my sorrow and sadness felt
as I gazed upon the leafless trees outside.
The Mayor of Casterbridge did not move me once;
Othello did not touch me. The tears, the fears,
did not abate as I sat in wooden chairs;  
I simply starred at winter. I did not know how blind
I was, seeing with only one half of one eye.
I'd go into the stacks to cry;  a certain kind of comfort
were all the lonely books that kept me company.
No sudden symphony of enlightenment did I hear
as I leaned against the shelves, themselves my only friends.
The end seemed more near than spring seemed soon
to blossom. I often was content to read the poems
of William Blake and Tennyson and Coleridge and Keats
in dark corners where no one stood but I. But as darkness
grew to end the sun and color skies pure black,
I knew it time to say goodbye to rhythms and to rhymes
and begin my stroll along endless paths to sleep away
my hidden horrors, and as well, my sorrows sodden.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS