To get home from some scene of gayety, Say a long dinner, and the laugh and joke, And funny story, and tobacco smoke, And all the not unkindly fatuousness Of fellow-beings not better and not worse Than others are, but gorged with course on course, And drenched with wine; and with one's evening dress To take off one's perfunctory smile, and be Wholly and solely one's sheer self again— Is like escaping from some dull, dumb pain; And in the luxury of that relief, It is, in certain sort and measure, as if One had put off the body, and the whole Illusion of life, and in one's naked soul Confronted the eternal Verity. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DYING SWAN by ALFRED TENNYSON THE MORAL FABLES: THE FOX, THE WOLF, AND THE HUSBANDMAN by AESOP THOREAU by AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT PSALM 2 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE THE HEART OF GOLD by WITTER BYNNER A SOLILOQUY ON THE COURSE AND CONSQUENCE OF A DOUBTING MIND by JOHN BYROM TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE by EDWARD CARPENTER |