"I grant you ample leave <br /> To use the hoary formula 'I am' <br /> Naming the emptiness where thought is not; <br /> But fill the void with definition, 'I' <br /> Will be no more a datum than the words <br /> You link false inference with, the 'Since' & 'so' <br /> That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl. <br /> Resolve your 'Ego', it is all one web <br /> With vibrant ether clotted into worlds: <br /> Your subject, self, or self-assertive 'I' <br /> Turns nought but object, melts to molecules, <br /> Is stripped from naked Being with the rest <br /> Of those rag-garments named the Universe. <br /> Or if, in strife to keep your 'Ego' strong <br /> You make it weaver of the etherial light, <br /> Space, motion, solids & the dream of Time -- <br /> Why, still 'tis Being looking from the dark, <br /> The core, the centre of your consciousness, <br /> That notes your bubble-world: sense, pleasure, pain, <br /> What are they but a shifting otherness, <br /> Phantasmal flux of moments? --"<br /><br />George Eliot<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-grant-you-ample-leave/
