I Can Recall The Day When Childhood Died. I Had Grown Thin And Tall And Eager-Eyed. Such A False Happiness Had Seized Me Then; A Child, I Saw Myself Man Among Men. Now I See That I Was Ignorant, Surprised, As One For The Surgeon'S Knife An'Sthetized. So That I Did Not Know What Loomed Before, Nor How, A Child, I Became A Child No More. The World'S Sharpened Knife Cut Round My Heart; Then Something Was Taken And Flung Apart. I Did Not, Could Not Know What Had Been Done. Under Some Evil Drag I Lived As One At Home In The Seeming World; Then Slowly Came Through Years And Years To Myself And Was No More The Same. I Know Now An Ill Thing Was Done To A Young Child By The World'S Wary Knife Maimed And Defiled. I Can Recall The Day Almost Without Anger Or Pain, When Childhood Did Not Die But Was Slain.