Failure

I AM mindful of failure that crowns the unborn
And the never begun —
Mortal and small and lost as the settled dust
Of that small son
From David’s unchastity and tears
Soon born and soon undone.

Failure, the hasty bread begrudged,
The absurd snatch they sing
In the courts of fools, where the king is a fool
The fool a king —
And death well knows it, and the dust
That says not a thing.

Failure, the last to break,
Or if you will, the first
Or any leaf that loved the summer but fell and fell
From the tree accursed —
Deformed, most beautiful, hidden, highest, least
The perfect and the worst.

Indiscriminate, thank God, it is:
Canker in the sweet brain
Of Denmark and his digger; sun of shadow and light
On a lost perelandran lane;
Deep as a grave in hell
And equable as rain.

Born certainly in the heart: perhaps of a calm maddening
Midsummer breeze:
Risen from choice to a great tide that may blow out the candid
stars: lovely or lost, flower or festered, angel or devil.
Failure is the wrong or the right
Choice among these.