Pain
Find me out a fortress, find
Such a mind within the mind
As can gather to its source
All of life’s inveterate force,
Find the hard and secret cell
In my body’s citadel,
Iron—ribbed from suck and drain
Of the clutching monster, Pain—
Pain, the formless alien will
That seeks me out, that strives to drill
Through shielding thought and barricade
Of all the strength my will has made;
That singles me and searches through
The sharp sense I am narrowed to;
And ever as the bond I strain
Thrusts me home to flesh again,
Estranging me from earth, to be
One fierce throb of identity!
Yet there’s fibre in the mind
I shall find, I shall find,
To resist and to defy
All the world that is not I.
