Self

This is my chiefest torment, that behind The brave and subtle spirit, the swift brain, There sits and shivers, in a cell of pain,A groping atom, melancholy, blind,Which is myself; -- though, when spring suns are kind, And rich leaves riot in the genial rain, I cheat him, dreaming: slip my rigorous chain,Free as a skiff before the dancing wind.Then he awakes: and vexed that I am glad, In dreary malice strains some nimble cord, Pricks his thin claw within some delicate nerve; And all at once I falter, start, and swerveFrom my true course, to fall, unmanned and sad, Into gross darkness, tangible, abhorred.