J McCrae read by Classic Poetry Aloud: Giving voice to the poetry of the past.

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Unsolved

by John McCrae (1872 – 1918)

Amid my books I lived the hurrying years,

Disdaining kinship with my fellow man;

Alike to me were human smiles and tears,

I cared not whither Earth's great life-stream ran,

Till as I knelt before my mouldered shrine,

God made me look into a woman's eyes;

And I, who thought all earthly wisdom mine,

Knew in a moment that the eternal skies

Were measured but in inches, to the quest

That lay before me in that mystic gaze.

"Surely I have been errant: it is best

That I should tread, with men their human ways."

God took the teacher, ere the task was learned,

And to my lonely books again I turned.

First aired: 19 February 2008

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