Classic Poem

After the last friend is gone,
After the last word of reproach has been said,
After the last drop of water has dried out of the sea,
After the last seed has turned to dust in the sterile ground,
After the judges and the jurors have convicted me and withdrawn, one by one,
After the advisers and the censurers have spoken and hurried away,
After the elect have threatened me with nonelect penalties and turned their broadclothed backs,
After the crowd has threatened me with majorities and gone aside to confer,
After mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers have pleaded a parting word of caution and passed beyond with the rest,
When I stand alone in the darkness the shelters and shields all down,
When the world without and within has snuffed all its lights and closed its show,
Then I somehow begin to get acquainted with myself,
Then I begin to see what I really am and can do,
Then I see that a false self has all these years been playing my part,
Then I see that the life I lived in the world was not my heart's life or my soul's life,
Then I see that I have been hiding from myself all this time.
I hear the last door shut, I hear the footfalls of the last guardian die away,
I see the last ray of the sun disappear down the corridors,
I am at last alone, alone with myself,
As in a desert alone with myself, as in the black night alone with myself,
After the last gifts of the world are taken away.

I had all the world had in the world to give me:
I had all that friendship had in friendship to give me,
I had all that property had in property to give me,
I had all that work had in work to give me,
I had all that beauty had in beauty to give me,
I had all that pleasure had in pleasure to give me,
I had all that passion had in passion to give me,
I had all that worship had in worship to give me:
I was poured full and run over with all that the world had to give me.

Yet I went about my life and had not found a way to live,
Yet I went about in the midst of property and property was not propertiful,
Yet I went about in the midst of work and work was not workful,
Yet I went about in the midst of beauty and beauty was not beautiful,
Yet I went about in the midst of pleasure and pleasure was not pleasureful,
Yet I went about in the midst of passion and passion was not passionful,
Yet I went about in the midst of worship and worship was not worshipful.

Then the quarrel came, then my one life quarreled with my other life,
Then the friends departed, then the properties all departed,
Then fame departed, then power departed,
Then the shadow fell, then the grasses disappeared and left me on the bleak sands,
Then life came upon life in the first rapture of naked recognition.