Phantom,
Are You Weary Also?
Still - (I said)
Ways there are to conquer pain,
And I have will.
I meditate
To overwhelm and overstrain
My soul until no strength remain
To kick against my fate.
Everything must be dissolved
In the furnace-heat - I am resolved.
Too weary now for thought or tears,
I force the
pace without a pause.
The fever buzzes in my ears
And floods my
face and draws
A veil of blood across my eyes -
And it must not be otherwise.
The body must be loaded
With
burdens that augment,
The spirit spurred and goaded
And
driven till
Its
strength be spent -
The will must not relent.
And when each night I reach half-dead
With long fatigue my lonely bed,
I
whisper, “Are you satisfied,
Phantom
ever at my side?
What laborings shall win release,
What monstrous excess purchase peace?
Phantom,
how long yet before
The night
when I can shut the door,
Put out the light, sink down and wind
My body in the quilts and find
That you are there no more?”
Ann Keith
If
you have any comments on this poem, Ann Keith would be
pleased to hear from you.
