And I was proud—O pride of intellect!—
That the nothingness of things I could detect.
III
I ran and still I run away from Thee,
Mistaking Thy compassion for Thine ire;—
A rebel I, fantastically free,
A green-eyed flame of crepitating fire
Whipped by the winds of Circumstance, and yet
By Thee pursued and by Thy love beset.
And why?—I oft pretend to know not why
This fond solicitude. For what am I
But a bubble of vanity, a human thing
Puffed with the vision of a loneliness
In which a pimpled Ego tries to sing
Of Self, alas! and spread its ebon wing.
But I remember still Thy first caress,
Which, in my infant vision I could feel
Even as the flowers, which Thy love reveal,
Even as the ocean in the Moon’s embrace,
Even as the sunrise that reflects Thy face.
And this remembering, I hailed the soul,
Flaunting the sacred symbol of the goal
That shrines Thine image; yea, and I was proud
That, rising over Self Thyself to find,
With Thine own godliness I was endowed,
And yet I am but partially resigned. . . . .
O, spiritual pride! which would disguise
76
