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The Harp and the King Poem by Judith Wright

 Sing something. Comfort me.
Make me believe the meaning in the rhyme.
The world’s a traitor to the self-betrayed;
but once I thought there was a truth in time,
while now my terror is eternity.
So do not take me outside time.
Make me believe in my mortality,
since that is all I have, the old king said.

This is the praise of time, the harp cried out-
that we betray all truths that we possess. 
Time strips the soul and leaves it comfortless
and sends it thirsty through a bone-white drought.
Time’s subtler treacheries teach us to betray.
What else could drive us on our way?
Wounded we cross the desert’s emptiness,
and must be false to what would make us whole. 
For only change and distance shape for us
soe new tremendous symbol for the soul.

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