Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning For spiritual perfection here below, This vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning, Seems my determined foe. So actively it makes a stern resistance, So cruelly sometimes it wages war Against a wholly spiritual existence Which I am striving for. It interrupts my soul's intense devotions, Some hope it strangles of divinest birth, With a swift rush of violent emotions Which link me to the earth. It is as if two mortal foes contended Within my bosom in a deadly strife, One for the loftier aims for souls intended, One for the earthly life. And yet I know this very war within me, Which brings out all my will-power and control; This very conflict at the last shall win me The loved and longed-for goal. The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel. Is the white light, that shows me my own strength. A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel It may become at length. Ah! When in the immortal ranks enlisted, I sometimes wonder if we shall not find That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted, Our places are assigned. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: THE VILLAGE ATHEIST by EDGAR LEE MASTERS OH YOU ARE COMING by SARA TEASDALE THE BALLAD OF LOVELY LADYES OF LONG AGOE by FRANCOIS VILLON LOVE'S CAUTION by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES A MUSICAL by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE STORY OF URIAH by RUDYARD KIPLING THE MERCHANT OF VENICE; A LEGEND OF ITALY by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |