Because I knew not when my life was good

Because I knew not when my life was good. Sarah Williams* (1838-1868).  This dramatic and insightful poem was printed in Williams’s Twilight Hours. A Legacy of Verse (1868), the book published after her death in April with a Memoir by Edward Hayes Plumptre*. It was entitled ‘Penitence’. It had eight stanzas: Because I knew not when my life was good   And when there was a light upon my path, But turned my soul perversely to the dark -     O Lord, I do repent.  Because I held upon my selfish road,   And left my brother wounded on the way, And called ambition duty, and pressed on -     O Lord, I do repent.  Because I spent the strength Thou gavest me,   In struggle which Thou never didst...