Classic Poem

Soul of a Sleeping Man Speaks.

Life holds for me no future joy or sweetness,
My lofty mission here below has failed,
And my prayer's purity has not availed
To change the odium of my incompleteness;
No power above
Will free me from the forces that enmesh
My vital essence in this hateful flesh,
Which I am doomed to love.

My strength untried, my burning will and splendor
Must be forever crushed, despised and mute;
For I am caged within this nescient brute,
Who knows my value not, and I must render
Respect and praise
To his vile body, guard his useless breath,
And serve him slavishly until his death,
Through sad, eventless days!

The cruel God that I revered unjustly
Chose me for this foul task from radiant spheres.
I, who was formed of vague, extrinsic tears;
I, atom of love that roamed through Heaven augustly;
I, pure, serene,
Was bidden to leave His paradise, obey,
And animate a mass of senseless clay,
And blend with flesh unclean.

And when from mystic realms, with strange tuition,
I with expectancy sublime had fled,
A voice like moaning thunders to me said:
" Oh soul! remember well thy sacred mission.
To the unborn
Give all thy passion, and with breath of flame
Illume the darkness in that formless frame;
Turn chaos into morn! "

And I obeyed. Alas! my will, attendant
On him for fruitless years, has striven in vain,
Through anguish and ungovernable pain,
To make his name unto the world resplendent.
But his base mind
Rejects the proffered power at my command;
My threats or prayers he can not understand;
His eyes to me are blind!

False, arrogant and vile, my body wanders,
Sinful, redemptionless, through stupid life,
Lacking a virile courage for the strife,
Knowing me not, although my wealth it squanders,
While the dull years
Creep like a wounded snake unto the tomb,
While I, before inevitable doom,
Conscious, await in fears.

That loathsome being, now my lifelong prison,
Will nothing dare, atrocious or sublime!
The germs of virtue or the seeds of crime
Have never in his mongrel heart arisen,
And all the fires
That I inherit from my native sky
Fail to arouse his torpor; he will die
Like his forgotten sires!

And even in death I shall not find elation;
No soothing hope can e'er remain for me
When from his odious corpse I skyward flee,
And leave him, object of my desecration,
In some vile tomb.
His mottled carrion, hated and unblest,
Like scores of others, will forever rest
In obloquy and gloom.