"Forgive my Guilt ," Robert P. Tristram coffin

Forgive my guilt

Not always sure what things called sins may be,

I am sure of one sin I have done.

It was years ago, and I was a boy,

I lay in the frostflowers with a gun,

The air ran blue as the flowers, I held my breath,

Two birds on golden legs slim as dream things

Ran like quicksilver on the golden sand,

My gun went off, they ran with broken wings

Into the sea, I ran to fetch them in,

But they swam with their heads high out to sea,

They cried like two sorrowful high flutes,

With jagged ivory bones where wings should be.

For days I heard them when I walked that headland

Crying out to their kind in the blue,

The other plovers were going over south

On silver wings leaving these broken two.

The cries went out one day; but I still hear them

Over all the sounds of sorrow in war or peace

I ever have heard, time cannot drown them,

Those slender flutes of sorrow never cease.

Two airy things forever denied the air!

I never knew how their lives at last were spilt,

But I have hoped for years all that is wild,

Airy, and beautiful will forgive my guilt.

By : Robert P.T Tristam Coffin

This poem by Robert P.T coffin features the regret of a young robert P. T coffin when he comitted what he referred to as "one of his sins" when he was a child. The poet was laying in some flowers on a beach with a gun (doing some training of some sort thats why he had it) when he accidentally shot two birds which where on the sand. The birds ran off into the water and the poet never got a chance to save them causing the guilt which he feels even to his present day as a grown man. Cofffin clearly regrets the accident and his remorse makes it appear that the incident was infact recent. Even though the birds eventually died after his atempt to save them the poet still heard them "crying in the blue" which further emphasises the fact that he indeed felt very guilty .