Classic Poem

I am too arid for tears, and for laughter
Too sore with unslaked desires.
My nights are scanty of sleep
And my sleep too full of dreaming;
The frosts are not cold enough
Nor the suns sufficiently burning:
The hollow waves are slack
And no wind from any quarter

Lifts strongly enough to outwear me.
My body is bitter with baffled lusts
Of work and love and endurance.
As a maverick, leaderless, lost from the herd,
Loweth my soul with the need of man encounters.

For I am crammed and replete
With the power of desolate places;
I have gone far on faint trails
And slept in the shade of my arrows;
Patience, forgiveness and might
Ache in me, finding no egress,
And virtues stale that are too big for the out gate.

I would run large with the man herd, the hill subduers,
I would impress myself on the mold of large adventure
Until all deeds of that likeness
Should a long time carry
The stripe of the firstling's father.

For I am anguished with strength,
Overfed with the common experience,
My feet run wide of the rutted trails
Toward the undared destinies.