Classic Poem

‘W HEN I look down my limbs and moving breast
I know that on a day these will commence
To contradict my being that bids them be
And sets the harmony by which they live.
I love to cleanse them; they reply to me,
Exuding, sloughing, duteously renewing,
For cleansing is the nature of their growth;
Yet in that day they shall deny my will,
And turn to filth, refuse, and dirty water,
While a dispersing sentience that was I
Stands close thereby in trouble, in travail
With words those lips delay to utter in time,
In awe-full agony lest that flesh dissolve
Before I can get into it again.

‘And when I see it buried I shall cry out:
If it is given to fire I shall have throes
Of suffering, of unbearable regret,
Longing, apprehension, that shall bind
Yet, yet a little while the loosening wreaths
Of sentience that are continent of me:
Then shame and dread shall be the heart of me
Because I have no body to hide my thoughts,
That are being scanned, as if by unseen eyes,
Pursued and judged, ineluctably judged,
I shivering in that exposury
To estimation, to distinguishing
Reproach and sympathy unbearable,
Until dissemination is complete.’