Explore "Aspiration" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ God knows I strive against low lust and vice, / Wound in the net of their voluptuous hair; / God knows that all their kisses are as ice / To me who do not care.
/ God knows, against the front of Fate I set / Eyes still and stern, and lips as bitter prest; / Raised clenched and ineffectual palms to let / Her rock-like pressing breast!
/ God knows what motive such large zeal inspires, / God knows the star for which I climb and crave, / God knows, and only God, the eating fires / That in my bosom rave.
/ I will not fall! I will not; thou dost lie! / Deep Hell! that seethest in thy simmering pit; / Thy thousand throned horrors shall not vie, / Or ever compass it!
/ But as thou sinkest from my soul away, / So shall I rise, rolled in the morning's rose, / Beyond this world, this life, this little day -- / God knows! God knows! God knows!