Come out, come out, ye souls that serve, why will ye die? <br />or will ye sit and stifle in your prison-homes <br />dreaming of some master that holds the winds in leash <br />and the waves of darkness yonder in the gaunt hollow of night? <br />nay, there is none that rules: all is a strife of the winds <br />and the night shall billow in storm full oft ere all be done. <br />For this is the hard doom that is laid on all of you, <br />to be that whereof ye dream, dreaming against your will. <br />But first ye must travel the many ways, and your close-wrapt souls <br />must be blown thro' with the rain that comes from the homeless dark: <br />for until ye have had care of the wastes there shall be no truce <br />for them nor you, nor home, but ever the ancient feud; <br />and the soul of man must house the cry of the darkling waves <br />as he follows the ridge above the waters shuddering to-wards night, <br />and the rains and the winds that roam anhunger'd for some heart's warmth. <br />Go: tho' ye find it bitter, yet must ye be bare <br />to the wind and the sea and the night and the wail of birds in the sky; <br />go: tho' the going be hard and the goal blinded with rain <br />yet the staying is a death that is never soften'd with sleep.<br /><br />Christopher John Brennan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/come-out-come-out/
