Why do they shine so brightly if not to be themselves completely? So it should be for ourselves, unless like a dying star that bursts apart, dwindles into space, the wars and diseases are the symptoms of our coming end. What does it matter, after all -- as another piece of the cosmos turns into heaps of gas clouds from which to start anew? What does it matter that we are diseased with dying and violence, as the signs that we are dying are changed and change itself is life? Praise the lord who is man, praise the body and soul of man who is his own creator, and praise that of which he makes himself, the first existence before his own. This is the mystery, that it exists, that it should be there to make of it ourselves. Such mystery is my religion, and I am afraid I must die as gods die, to be other than I know myself now because it is in me to change. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON ANOTHER'S SORROW, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE RECRUIT by ROBERT WILLIAM CHAMBERS THE LAST LEAF by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES STANZAS TO A LADY by JOHN CODRINGTON BAMPFYLDE MASKS OF DEATH by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN SONNET ON MOOR PARK - WRITTEN AT PARIS, MAY 11, 1826 by SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES |