A Haiku - Atonement
Where can we seek solace for our mistakes in life?
We might promise to never again sin, but could we keep that promise? Would mortal learning stop, if we never again made mistakes?
Too afraid to try?
How could I take a step?
No step is certain.
I venture onward.
One tentative step ahead.
Wishing to be sure.
Cautious yes, but sure.
If I should fall, he's still here,
To catch me with love.
Dickens knew him too.
When a saviour was needed,
Sidney Carton came.
No greater love, his.
Laying down his life one day.
For more than a friend.
Children of his God,
Lost sinners doomed once to die.
Now saved forever.
__________
Dickens wrote....
Love's greatest sacrifice in western literature is perhaps the love of Sidney Carton for Lucie Manette as written by Charles Dickens in "A Tale Of Two Cities".
The setting is the French Revolution and the dark days of that time when men sought vengeance themselves, though forgetting their own stated belief in holy scripture which proclaims "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12:19)
As with practically all commercialy successful literature, Dickens wrote of interesting characters having dreams and goals, while struggling with the three great struggles of man versus man, man versus nature, and man versus self with morality a factor.
Writers write from the background of personal experience and knowledge. Surely the role of Sidney Carton in Dickens' tale has such origins.
© 2014 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.
