Poetry Archives

I would I might forget that I am I,
 And break the heavy chain that binds me fast,
 Whose links about myself my deeds have cast.
What in the body’s tomb doth buried lie
Is boundless; ‘t is the spirit of the sky,
 Lord of the future, guardian of the past,
 And soon must forth, to know his own at last.
In his large life to live, I fain would die.

Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food,
 But calling not his suffering his own;
Blessèd the angel, gazing on all good,
 But knowing not he sits upon a throne;
Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood,
 And doomed to know his aching heart alone.