HAVE we given up thy spell, Renunciation? Do we dream that we can be born without first dying? That joy comes with no pain? Once the world heard thy lips crying: "Renounce! renounce!" Oh, calm-eyed winged one that hovers near us... But now they preach of the unalloyed pleasures of the faithful, And of the gains that fly to the needy soul all effortless! Yet do I know that desiring my dearest friend, I did not have him till I went from him, Lonely for his sake through a month of days... Yet do I know how songs are written... The singer moves away from faces, He goes from blessed comfort to cold agony, Putting away the man in him to be the poet... Yet do I know of a mother (so of all mothers) Who could not have the child biding in her womb Till, shrieking, she had given him up, And from her body the small new life was sundered... Then in her arms she held him: he was hers... | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...COUNTRY SCHOOLROOM, ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER ON THE GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT GIVEN BY ENGLISH NOBILITY & GENTRY by WILLIAM BLAKE ON JOHN DOVE [JOHNNY DOW], INNKEEPER OF MAUCHLINE by ROBERT BURNS TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ. by GEORGE GORDON BYRON EPIGRAM: 13. DIALOGUE WITH THE DEAD by CALLIMACHUS |