The Soul’s Travail

​I dreamed my song would cleave the vast,

To strike the heart, alive and fleet;

Yet bitter sorrow binds me fast,

My limp hand crushing down the sheet.

​My last creation lies stone-dead;

The garden peers in, dark and chill;

And every step I take, misled;

Impatience snaps the slender quill.

​The ring of words is narrow, blind;

Past me the surge of others flies;

I dreamed new worlds, yet froze behind,

Forsaken under empty skies.

​When, where the linden branches weep,

The earthly burden falls from me,

I want the voice to cut more deep,

And louder ring in memory!

​My teeth clench hard against the cry;

I grimly take a fresh white sheet;

Across the draft the sunbeams lie:

The dawn — tormenting, pure, complete.