Classic Poem

From day to day I learn but to unlearn,
I live to die — my pleasure is my woe;
In dreary darkness I can light discern,
Though blind, I see, and all but knowledge know.
I nothing grasp, and yet the world embrace
Though bound to earth, o'er highest heaven I fly.
With what's behind I run an untried race
And break from that which holds me mightily.
Evil I find when hurrying after bliss,
Loveless I love, and doubt of all I see;
All seems a dream that most substantial is,
I hate myself — others are dear to me;
Voiceless, I speak — I hear, of hearing void;
My aye is no ; truth becomes falsehood strange;
I eat, not hungry — shift, though unannoyed;
Touch without hands — and sense to folly change.
I seek to soar, and then the deeper fall,
When most I seem to sink, then mount I still;
Laughing I weep, — and waking, dreams I call;
And when most cold, hotter than fire I feel;
Perplexed, I do what I would leave undone;
Losing I gain — time fleetest, slowest flows;
Though free from pain, 'neath pain's attacks I groan;
To craftiest fox the gentlest lambkin grows.