If I could know but when and why <br />This piece of thoughtless dust begins <br />To think, and straightway I am I, <br />And these bright hopes and these brave sins, <br />That have been freer than the air, <br />Circle their freedom with my span; <br />If I could know but why this care <br />Is mine and not the care or man; <br />Why, thus unwilling, I rejoice, <br />And will the good I do not do, <br />And with the same particular voice <br />Speak the old folly and the new; <br />If I could know, seeing my soul <br />A white ship with a bending sail, <br />Rudderless, and without a goal, <br />Fly seaward, humble to the gale, <br />Why, knowing not from whence I came, <br />Nor why I seek I know not what, <br />I bear this heavy, separate name, <br />While winds and waters bear it not; <br />And why the unlimited earth delights <br />In life, not knowing breath from breath, <br />While I, that count my days and nights, <br />Fear thought in life, and life in death.<br /><br />Arthur Symons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-tarragona/
