WHAT joys, what strange joys, lurk behind the actual! See how great the pleasures of the body, of eating drinking, resting; or of the mind, of knowledge, ambition, power; And yet behind these what strange pleasures: Pleasures of fierce pain endured, pleasures of the body exposed to bullet-wounds, scourges, fire—shattered and cast away; Pleasures of pleasure refused, of simple withdrawnness and indifference, or of mastery and ascendancy. Ever breaking out behind the actual some unknown force or being, Throwing the whilom body off like a husk, with its former capacities and needs, Creating new joys, fiercer wilder than those of old. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ROSE AND THE BEE by SARA TEASDALE A LETTER TO HER HUSBAND, ABSENT UPON PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT by ANNE BRADSTREET FREEDOM AND LOVE by THOMAS CAMPBELL THE MAIDEN QUEEN: SONG by JOHN DRYDEN WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME by PATRICK SARSFIELD GILMORE |