Why do they shine so brightly if not to be themselves completely? So it should be for ourselves, unless like a dying star that bursts apart, dwindles into space, the wars and diseases are the symptoms of our coming end. What does it matter, after all -- as another piece of the cosmos turns into heaps of gas clouds from which to start anew? What does it matter that we are diseased with dying and violence, as the signs that we are dying are changed and change itself is life? Praise the lord who is man, praise the body and soul of man who is his own creator, and praise that of which he makes himself, the first existence before his own. This is the mystery, that it exists, that it should be there to make of it ourselves. Such mystery is my religion, and I am afraid I must die as gods die, to be other than I know myself now because it is in me to change. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 62 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE BROOK; AN IDYL by ALFRED TENNYSON THE TENT ON THE BEACH: 10. THE PALATINE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE MAGIC MIRROR by HENRY MILLS ALDEN TIGER LILIES by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE NONSENSE SAW OF A SAW-GIRL I SAW IN ARKANSAW by FRED W. ALLSOPP |