I STILL can suffer pain; I strive and hope in vain; My wounds may not all heal, Nor time their depth reveal. So dreamed I, of a summer day, As in the oak's cool shade I lay, And thought that shining, lightsome river Went rippling, rippling on forever: - That I should bend with pain, Should sing and love in vain; That I should fret and pine, And hopeless thought define. I want a true and simple heart, That asks no pleasure in a part, But seeks the whole; and finds the soul, A heart at rest, in sure control. I shall accept all I may have, Or fine or foul, or rich or brave; Accept that measure in life's cup, And touch the rim and raise it up. Some drop of Time's strange glass it holds, So much endurance it enfolds; Or base and small, or broadly meant, I cannot spill God's element. Dion or C…sar drained no more, Not Solon, nor a Plato's lore; So much had they the power to do, So much hadst thou, and equals too. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MINERVA JONES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS LAUGHTER (YOUTH SPEAKS TO HIS OWN OLD AGE) by CONRAD AIKEN AN EXPATIATION ON THE COMBINING OF WEATHERS AT THIRTY .... by HAYDEN CARRUTH SORROW SINGERS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON WINTER GARDEN THEATRE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |