By Alan Paton
I have barred the doors
Of the place where I bide,
I am old and afraid
Of the world outside.
How the poor souls cry
In the cold and the rain,
I have blocked my ears,
They shall call me in vain.
If I peer through the cracks
Hardly daring draw breath,
They are waiting there still
Patient as death.
The maimed and the sick
The tortured of soul,
Arms outstretched as if
I could help them be whole.
No shaft of the sun
My hiding shall find,
Go tell them outside
I am deaf, I am blind.
Who will drive them away,
Who will ease me my dread,
Who will shout to the fools
‘He is dead! he is dead!’?
Sometimes they knock
At the place where I hide,
I am old, and afraid
Of the world outside.
Do they think, do they dream
I will open the door?
Let the world in
And know peace no more?
