I am betrayed by multiplicity And crowded to the wall by my own kind; If I should smile, ten thousand eyes agree, If I would shout my woe I cannot find An empty space to weep. About me walk The shapes whose substance is my very own, While beauty blooms a dozen to the stalk, And death is common as a paving stone. But this I know beyond complaint and curse, That Adam once cast forth to find his place Upon an empty star, knew nothing worse Than in his mind the crowding of God's face; And that a galley slave on endless seas Had for horizon his own straining knees. |