The Success of Failure (a Dickens trope)

 

The Success of Failure (a Dickens trope)

You climbed the Social Ladder

With dizzying ease.

A moment, and you were elevated to great-

Was it expectations?-

Or perplexity?

Then you found that your hope was a convict's hope,

A hope of fetters and fear.

And yet in failure the formation

Of your malleable and shifting

Character was completed and made full.

You as you knew you died, and with the success

Of ultimate failure

You became a man of good faith.

Your heart broke and finally the goodness

Could flow in.

I think, Pip, that you wear it well.