[Poetry] Soul man

Edwin is a 28 year old student who shared accomodation with Maro and Simon when they first arrived in Freetown. Edwin is studying Peace and Democracy at Fourah Bay University. He came to Sierra Leone from Ghana when he was about ten years old. Today, he is a confident, assertive, gentle man. Sometimes he feels very low about the limited opportunities that are available to him; but he works hard to overcome them. Like many young men he dreams of moving away from Sierra Leone and working abroad. Here are a selection of three of Edwin's poems.

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The Lonely Soul

Wondering through deserts, forests and plain paths
She went out not knowing here fate
She lured herself into a solitary song as she trod
When body and soul were in tune with the
Friends of the wild
She sung from a resonant heart
All words depicting peace and love
Yet now her spirit fails, she is less sentient than a tree
Rolled round in earth’s each day
With rocks and stones and things
All sane affirmative speech
Had been profaned
To a horrid mechanical screech


Sympathy

From the world’s greatest plan
As fixed by Heaven’s decree
Man’s true delight
Should spring from sympathy

Nature did favour it and
These laws we retain
Our approved projection draws
A pleasure from its pain

Grief therefore itself has comforts clear
The sordid never know
And ecstasy attends the tear
When virtue bids it flow

For when it streams from that pure source
No bribes the heart can win
To check or alter from its course
The luxury within


Perserverance

Success has always been easy to measure
It is the distance between
One’s origins and one’s final achievment
The desire to succeed creates
The power to persevere
It is a journey

This journey starts from the day
That man is born
The day that man starts existing like any living creature
To the moment that man decides
To stop existing vaguely and
Takes up his essence

Failure is never defeat
Not until man stops trying
It means rising every time he falls
For great works are performed
Not byt strength but PERSEVERANCE