Explore "Fleeing Away" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar, / Higher and higher on soul-lent wings; / But ever and often, and more and more / They are dragged down earthward by little things, / By little troubles and little needs, / As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.
My purpose is not what it ought to be, / Steady and fixed, like a star on high, / But more like a fisherman's light at sea; / Hither and thither it seems to fly- / Sometimes feeble, and sometimes bright, / Then suddenly lost in the gloom of night.
My life is far from my dream of life- / Calmly contented, serenely glad; / But, vexed and worried by daily strife, / It is always troubled, and ofttimes sad- / And the heights I had thought I should reach one day / Grow dimmer and dimmer, and farther away.
My heart finds never the longed-for rest; / Its worldly striving, its greed for gold, / Chilled and frightened the calm-eyed guest, / Who sometimes sought me in days of old; / And ever fleeing away from me / Is the higher self that I long to be.