Featured Poem: “Oh could I raise the darken’d veil” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

This weeks featured poem comes recommended by David Grant, an intern from The University of Liverpool.

This week's poem “Oh could I raise the darken’d veil” is my reflection on the recent events in Thailand where twelve boys and their coach were trapped inside a cave for nine days before being discovered by two British divers.

The poem engages with the perspective of endless gloom and grief that I feel the boys were destined to face before being rescued.

“Oh could I raise the darken’d veil”

Oh could I raise the darken’d veil,

Which hides my future life from me,

Could unborn ages slowly sail,

Before my view—and could I see

My every action painted there,

To cast one look I would not dare.

There poverty and grief might stand,

And dark Despair’s corroding hand,

Would make me seek the lonely tomb

To slumber in its endless gloom.

Then let me never cast a look,

Within Fate’s fix’d mysterious book.

Nathaniel Hawthorne