After you have enriched your soul <br />To the highest point, <br />With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities, <br />The power to interpret glances, silences, <br />The pauses in momentous transformations, <br />The genius of divination and prophecy; <br />So that you feel able at times to hold the world <br />In the hollow of your hand; <br />Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers <br />Into the compass of your soul, <br />Your soul takes fire, <br />And in the conflagration of your soul <br />The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear -- <br />Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision <br />Life does not fiddle.<br /><br />Edgar Lee Masters<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jonathan-swift-somers/
