Classic Poem

I go where my heart goes: where else should I go?
With or without reason, I go with my heart:
Whether urged to go or warned to stay, I go with my heart:
In the face of everything bitter and sweet, false and true, I go with my heart:
Joyously into any shadow, victoriously towards whatever defeat, I go with my heart:
Being afraid sometimes to risk what I must become, yet being more afraid to remain what I am:
Often denying love to go with love, denying light to find light:
Choosing for good and all the heart's wish, steering for good and all the heart's course:
Acknowledging the world I leave but ready and eager for the world I go to:
Ready for disaster and wreck and death in the world I go to:
Ready for the worst that turns up: ready to lose all and get oblivion:
Ready for the heart's demands, the heart's decisions, the heart's denials:
Oh, so ready to go where the heart goes: oh, so eager to go where the heart goes!

Do you go with the state? Well, so do I if the state goes with the heart:
But if the state goes against the heart then I go against the state:
And your church the same, and your books, and all your proud scholarship:
If they go against the heart then I go against them:
It makes no difference what they go with, if they go against the heart I go against them:
They may establish their laws: I will show that their laws are lawless:
They may put up imposing libraries and schools: I will show that their learning fastens chains on the crowd:
For the way the heart goes is the way the people go: there is no other way:
And if the institutions go against the heart they go against the people,
And nothing that goes against the people can stand: nothing: nothing:
It may seem to flourish for awhile but is bound to come down: it has no foundation:
The earth will go out from under it—gravitation will go out—faith will go out:
As surely as it is against love it is against life,
As surely as it is against the heart the heart will reduce it to dust.

A man's or a woman's home is where a man's or a woman's love is:
If you dont go where your heart goes where do you go?—if you dont go to love where do you go?
And if you go east while your heart goes west what will fill up the mocking gap between?
And if you keep the north star over your shoulder instead of straight ahead nothing can untangle your twisted feet:
And you let your heart go somewhere alone: you do not go with your heart:
You know your heart goes right—goes where it belongs: but you do not go with your heart:
And you fail to go where your heart goes: you go with an income or a house:
And you arraign the heart: you have discovered that the heart is a stumbling guide:
And you say that the heart needs eyes, which I say, too: who sees it better than I do?
And I say that the heart has eyes, which you do not say, too:
(Oh such eyes as the heart has! has life eyes? only such eyes as the heart has!):
And so you make a contract with the world: you will go where the world goes:
And you will profane the days and nights with your perfidy: you will go where treason goes:
And when you rob or kill you will call robbing or killing by pleasant names so as to feel at ease with your bloody hands:
You who do not go where life goes but go where death goes:
You who do not go where heaven goes but go where hell goes:
You who—

I go where my heart goes: where else should I go?
I do not want to go right if my heart goes wrong:
I am not bothered with right or wrong anyhow: I am bothered only about my heart:
I could be very good and not going where my heart goes fail, O shamefully fail!
I could be very bad and going where my heart goes win, O gloriously win!
I will stand by you in a pinch, my heart: through thick and thin you will feel my supporting arm:
Long and often I have leaned on you, you have leaned on me, as we trudged along together:
I unfailingly go with you: where you go I will go: tomorrow, next day, always:
I will let the properties go their way: the reputations: the great men:
Nothing is of use to me but you, O my heart: nothing but you, O fallible heroic heart!
I will go where you go: I know nowhere else to go:
I have tried to find some other place to go, but I return to you:
I will let the crowd go with the legislature: I will go where there is no legislature: where there is only love:
For he who goes where his heart goes may have to give up all who love him to get all he loves:
He may have to be misunderstood by everybody to get so he may understand himself:
But he who goes where his heart goes, goes where all futures go and is exalted:
I go where my heart goes: where else should I go?