I yielded up my soul to Fate's decree,And gave her all my homeland's legacy.
I walked alone through crags with stumbling feet,Where perils wait at every wild retreat.
Why did I strike her rocks, her ravines bare,And wander like a blind gazelle in care?
Why am I ravished by what fades away,Like moths that chase a distant, dying ray?
A captive am I—yet cannot tell if boundToward realms of darkness, or if night is ground.
My dwelling lies between imaginingAnd, now and then, fair beauty on the hill in spring.
I walked one gloomy day in quiet mood,Alone, and praised the wonder of the rood.
Then Inspiration showed his radiant face,With phantom dawns arrayed upon that grace.
I called to him; a gaze made me stand still—It held all arts, all joy of seeing's thrill.
I heard him while the morning ran his way,The cosmos wrapped in robes of fiery day:
"You are the prisoner—how can you aspireBeneath a folk who live in bondage's mire?"
"How lightly you accept that men portrayYour likeness as a maiden stripped away?"
"That life reveals its magic's stamp to youCloaked in deformity and ugliness too."
"Evil souls were fashioned long before our day—Alas, my soul, for villain worlds' display!"
"Your prison, child, shall be my record still—Life's pictures drawn by journeys' nimble quill."
"This is the world—so dwell among its coilThat you may glimpse the secrets of its soil."
"Whoever wins the hidden secret's keyWill know his fortune—yours may yet not flee."
"Perhaps your sun shall rise in glorious prime,Whilst Fate's wide power still marks the span of time."
Life decreed that I should come to men,And men decreed I find no home again.
I turned from worldly life, for therein dwellBut tiny souls and voices of farewell.
I walked in realms of hope, to seek the shareOf joy, after long stumbling and despair.
Yet hopes beguile with anguish for their guise,And soul's deep woes are harvests that arise.
Strange that I am imprisoned here alone,While others freely roam creation's zone!
They frolic as they please, in pleasure blest,While I am prisoner of these depths' unrest?
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