Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning <br /> <br />For spiritual perfection here below, <br /> <br />This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning, <br /> <br />Seems my determined foe, <br /> <br />So actively it makes a stern resistance, <br /> <br />So cruelly sometimes it wages war <br /> <br />Against a wholly spiritual existence <br /> <br />Which I am striving for. <br /> <br />It interrupts my soul's intense devotions; <br /> <br />Some hope it strangles, of divinest birth, <br /> <br />With a swift rush of violent emotions <br /> <br />Which link me to the earth. <br /> <br />It is as if two mortal foes contended <br /> <br />Within my bosom in a deadly strife, <br /> <br />One for the loftier aims for souls intended, <br /> <br />One for the earthly life. <br /> <br />And yet I know this very war within me, <br /> <br />Which brings out all my will-power and control, <br /> <br />This very conflict at the last shall win me <br /> <br />The loved and longed-for goal. <br /> <br />The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel <br /> <br />Is the white light that shows me my own strength. <br /> <br />A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel, <br /> <br />It may become at length. <br /> <br />Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted, <br /> <br />I sometimes wonder if we shall not find <br /> <br />That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted, <br /> <br />Our places are assigned.<br /><br />Ella Wheeler Wilcox<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-by-fire/
