Find me out a fortress, find <br />Such a mind within the mind <br />As can gather to its source <br />All of life's inveterate force, <br />Find the hard and secret cell <br />In my body's citadel, <br />Iron--ribbed from suck and drain <br />Of the clutching monster, Pain-- <br />Pain, the formless alien will <br />That seeks me out, that strives to drill <br />Through shielding thought and barricade <br />Of all the strength my will has made; <br />That singles me and searches through <br />The sharp sense I am narrowed to; <br />And ever as the bond I strain <br />Thrusts me home to flesh again, <br />Estranging me from earth, to be <br />One fierce throb of identity! <br />Yet there's fibre in the mind <br />I shall find, I shall find, <br />To resist and to defy <br />All the world that is not I.<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pain-607/
