"WHEN I look down my limbs and moving breast I know that on a day these will commence To contradict my being that bids them be And sets the harmony by which they live. I love to cleanse them; they reply to me, Exuding, sloughing, duteously renewing, For cleansing is the nature of their growth; Yet in that day they shall deny my will, And turn to filth, refuse, and dirty water, While a dispersing sentience that was I Stands close thereby in trouble, in travail With words those lips delay to utter in time, In awe-full agony lest that flesh dissolve Before I can get into it again. "And when I see it buried I shall cry out: If it is given to fire I shall have throes Of suffering, of unbearable regret, Longing, apprehension, that shall bind Yet, yet a little while the loosening wreaths Of sentience that are continent of me: Then shame and dread shall be the heart of me Because I have no body to hide my thoughts, That are being scanned, as if by unseen eyes, Pursued and judged, ineluctably judged, I shivering in that exposury To estimation, to distinguishing Reproach and sympathy unbearable, Until dissemination is complete." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PATRIOT; AN OLD STORY by ROBERT BROWNING A PRAYER FOR A VERY NEW ANGEL by VIOLET ALLEYN STOREY THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT [OR AFTER] CORUNNA by CHARLES WOLFE MY ANGUISH by INNOKENTI FYODOROVICH ANNENSKY BRUCE: HOW AYMER DE VALENCE, AND JOHN OF LORN CHASED THE BRUCE ... by JOHN BARBOUR TO MR. BLEECKER, ON HIS PASSAGE TO NEW YORK by ANN ELIZA BLEECKER ALL WHITE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 101. AGE: 2 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |