At the Day's End by Ruth Collie
"At the Day's End" by Ruth Collie is a brief devotional lyric structured as an evening prayer of contrition addressed directly to "Life," personified as a benevolent guide whose gifts have gone unappreciated over the course of an ordinary day. The speaker, using the collective "we," asks pardon for having mistreated even a single hour of "this good day," admitting to a "stubborn, sulky will" that chose "an ugly way" despite Life having laid out "a well-built, clean, a straight and smiling street." The central confession is one of inattention and ingratitude: the speaker acknowledges failing to notice the beauty offered at every turn, having walked with "eyes turned inwardly," blind to a bird or a flower and to all the loveliness surrounding them. This turning inward is framed not as innocent distraction but as a moral lapse—a refusal of the gifts Life continually extends. The poem's second movement widens the catalog of faults from simple inattention to active spiritual failure. The speaker confesses to having "turned deaf ears to voices that inspire," suggesting moments when higher promptings—conscience, aspiration, creative or ethical impulse—were ignored. This is compounded by having "entertained pale, cowardly fears," naming timidity and self-doubt as another way the day's potential was squandered, and by having "fanned a low desire," an admission of yielding to baser impulses rather than nobler ones. The cumulative effect of these failures is that some unspecified "gift" Life gave was brought "to naught"—wasted or left unrealized. For each of these lapses, the refrain "your pardon, Life, we crave" (echoing the poem's opening "Your pardon, Life") repeats like a litany, reinforcing the poem's structure as a ritual of daily reckoning rather than a single dramatic apology. The poem closes on a note of humble resolve rather than despair. The speaker asks to be heard "if we have acted ill, in deed or thought along the way," but rather than dwelling in guilt, pivots to a promise of renewal: "to-morrow we will rise with strengthened will—and tarnish not your day." This final couplet reframes the entire poem as less about punishment and more about self-correction; the confession functions as a hinge between one day's shortcomings and the next day's improved conduct. The imagined offense is never a matter of grand sin but of small, human failures—sulkiness, distraction, fear, low desire—matched by an equally modest and sincere aspiration to do better. Formally, the poem operates as a single flowing address built on anaphora and apostrophe: "Your pardon, Life" recurs as a structural refrain, and "Life" is capitalized and addressed as though it were a person or deity capable of offering or withholding forgiveness, giving the poem the quality of a secular vesper or evening examination of conscience. The rhythm is conversational and confessional, listing offenses in parallel clauses (if we have... if we have...) that build a cumulative sense of accountability without ever naming a specific wrongdoing—keeping the poem universal enough to serve as a nightly self-examination for any reader. Thematically, the work centers on mindfulness, gratitude, and moral responsibility for how one's inner disposition—will, attention, courage, desire—shapes the experience of an ordinary day, and it ends by affirming the possibility of renewal through will rather than through external absolution.
By Ruth Collie · First published 1925 · Genre: Poetry, Philosophical, Spiritual