My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night,
Beating its wings against the prison
bars,
Longing to reach the outer world of light,
And, all untrammelled, soar among the
stars.
Wild, mighty thoughts struggle within my soul
For utterance. Great waves of passion roll
Through all my being. As the lightnings play
Through thunder clouds, so beams of blinding light
Flash for a moment on my darkened brain---
Quick, sudden, glaring beams, that fade away
And leave me in a darker, deeper night.
Oh, poet souls! that struggle all in vain
To live in peace and harmony with earth,
It cannot be! They must endure the pain
Of conscience and of unacknowledged
worth,
Moving and dwelling with the common herd,
Whose highest thought has never strayed
as far,
Or never strayed beyond the horizon's
bar;
Whose narrow hearts and souls are never stirred
With keenest pleasures, or with sharpest
pain;
Who rise and eat and sleep, and rise
again,
Nor question why or wherefore. Men whose minds
Are never shaken by wild passion winds;
Women whose broadest, deepest realm of thought
The bridal veil will cover.
Who see not
God's mighty work lying undone to-day,---
Work that a woman's hands can do as well,
Oh, soul of mine; better to live alway
In this tumultuous inward pain and strife,
Doing the work that in thy reach doth
fall,
Weeping because thou canst not do it
all;
Oh, better, my soul, in this unrest to dwell,
Than grovel as they grovel on through life.
Poetical works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Edinburgh : W. P. Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, 1917.
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