SOUL, be your own Pleasance and mart, A land unknown, A state apart. Scowl, and be rude Should love entice; Call gratitude The costliest vice. Deride the ill By fortune sent; Be scornful still If foes repent. When curse and stone Are hissed and hurled, Aloof, alone Disdain the world. Soul, disregard The bad, the good; Be haughty, hard, Misunderstood. Be neutral; spare No humblest lie, And overbear Authority. Laugh wisdom down; Abandon fate; Shame the renown Of all the great. Dethrone the past; Deed, vision—naught Avails at last Save your own thought. Though on all hands The powers unsheathe Their lightning-brands And from beneath, And from above One curse be hurled With scorn, with love Affront the world. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BILL AND JOE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES EVENING IN ENGLAND by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE THE ALLIGATOR by BEATRICE WITTE RAVENEL SONNET: 1 by CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY SEVEN SAD SONNETS: 7. THEY MEET AGAIN by MARY REYNOLDS ALDIS |