This spirit-choking atmosphere
With deadly serpent-coil
Entwines my soaring-upwardness
And chains me to the soil,
Where’er I seek with eager stride
To gain yon gleaming height,
These noisesome fetters coil aloft
And snare my buoyant flight.
O, why these aspirations bold,
These rigours of desire,
That surge within so ceaselessly
Like living tongues of fire?
And why these glowing forms of hope
That scintillate and shine,
If naught of all that burnished dream
Can evermore be mine?
It cannot be, fate does not mock,
And man’s untoward decree
Shall not forever thus confine
My life’s entirety,
My every fibre fierce rebels
Against this servile role,
And all my being broods to break
This death-grip from my soul!