Remorse
I have committed the worst of sins One can commit. I have not been Happy. Let the glaciers of oblivion Take and engulf me, mercilessly. My parents bore me for the risky And the beautiful game of life, For earth, water, air and fire. I failed them, I was not happy. Their youthful hope for me unfulfilled. I applied my mind to the symmetric Arguments of art, its web of trivia. They willed me bravery. I was not brave. It never leaves me. Always at my side, That shadow of a melancholy man.
Remorse - meaning Summary
Happiness as a Duty
The speaker judges his own unhappiness as a moral failure, believing he has betrayed both life’s possibilities and his parents’ hopes. His regret is not tied to one event but to a lasting sense that he chose intellectual pursuits over courage and fully lived experience. The poem ends with melancholy as an inescapable double: a version of the self that continually accompanies him.
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