Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AS BY FIRE, by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning Last Line: Our places are assigned. Alternate Author Name(s): Wilson, Robert, Mrs. Subject(s): Life; Passion; War | ||||||||
Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning For spiritual perfection here below, This vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning, Seems my determined foe. So actively it makes a stern resistance, So cruelly sometimes it wages war Against a wholly spiritual existence Which I am striving for. It interrupts my soul's intense devotions, Some hope it strangles of divinest birth, With a swift rush of violent emotions Which link me to the earth. It is as if two mortal foes contended Within my bosom in a deadly strife, One for the loftier aims for souls intended, One for the earthly life. And yet I know this very war within me, Which brings out all my will-power and control; This very conflict at the last shall win me The loved and longed-for goal. The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel. Is the white light, that shows me my own strength. A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel It may become at length. Ah! When in the immortal ranks enlisted, I sometimes wonder if we shall not find That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted, Our places are assigned. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I AM YOUR WAITER TONIGHT AND MY NAME IS DIMITRI by ROBERT HASS MITRAILLIATRICE by ERNEST HEMINGWAY RIPARTO D'ASSALTO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY WAR VOYEURS by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA THE DREAM OF WAKING by RANDALL JARRELL THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL |
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