"Soul-Sick Am I"

"Soul-Sick Am I"



Soul-sick am I, O God, of little things—
      Small pleasures, aspirations, creeds, desires;
      Low valleys, slender brooks and hearthside fires.
I want the sweep of the wide, triumphant wings;
The halleluiah that the ocean sings;
      The wind that roars like beasts and never tires!
      Great God, my soul aches for the mighty lyres
of Nature! For men heritaged as kings,
Who dare, aspire, achieve, not counting cost,
      So that a deed be done that reaches far—
      A new land won; a perilous water crossed;
So that a man coming to his last rest
      Shall wear upon his brow the splendid star
      That leads the glorious empire-builders West!






"Soul-Sick Am I" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Vanishing Race (1911).

No comments:

Post a Comment