--Heart of my love! you too I heard, murmuring low, through one of the
wrists around my head;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells last night
under my ear.
_WHEREFORE?_
O me! O life!--of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish;
Of myself for ever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and
who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle
ever renewed;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around
me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
_ANSWER_.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
_QUESTIONABLE._
As I lay with my head in your lap, camerado,
The confession I made I resume--what I said to you and the open air I
resume.
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
(Indeed I am myself the real soldier;
It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped
artilleryman;)
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been
had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities,
nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is called hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is called heaven is little or nothing to me.
Pages:
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201