SOUL, be your own Pleasance and mart, A land unknown, A state apart. Scowl, and be rude Should love entice; Call gratitude The costliest vice. Deride the ill By fortune sent; Be scornful still If foes repent. When curse and stone Are hissed and hurled, Aloof, alone Disdain the world. Soul, disregard The bad, the good; Be haughty, hard, Misunderstood. Be neutral; spare No humblest lie, And overbear Authority. Laugh wisdom down; Abandon fate; Shame the renown Of all the great. Dethrone the past; Deed, vision—naught Avails at last Save your own thought. Though on all hands The powers unsheathe Their lightning-brands And from beneath, And from above One curse be hurled With scorn, with love Affront the world. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPISTLE TO MR. MURRAY by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK: FIT 3. THE BAKER'S TALE by CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE DAUGHTER OF MENDOZA by MIRABEAU BONAPARTE LAMAR THE BLESSED HANDS OF SLEEP by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH INCLUSIONS by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE RING AND THE BOOK: BOOK 4. TERTIUM QUID by ROBERT BROWNING |