Classic Poem

I pray to my soul.
I lock out the priest, I prohibit God, I forget how to read the books,
I refuse all presences but that presence which issues in my self.
My self alone in prayer to my self alone.

I pray to my soul
I pray to be saved from all narrowness of self,
I pray to be saved from all breadth of self,
I pray to be saved from the pertinence of my body,
I pray to be saved from the invisibility of my soul,
I pray to be saved from that which saves and that which damns,
I pray to be saved from light and from darkness,
I pray for release from my talents and from my idiocies—from what I am proud of and what I am ashamed of,
I pray for release from that which separates and that which binds,
I pray for prayer alone and self alone ever and ever.

I pray to my soul.
I pray for defeats, I pray for dishonor,
I crave to share with everybody the worst and best that comes
I have adjourned all christs and scriptures,
I have adjourned all saviors and synods,
I have adjourned the moralists and the curists,
I have paid the debts of heaven with the debts of hell, and hell's debts with heaven's, and cancelled heaven and hell,
I have opened myself to but one soul—my own,
I have opened myself to but one commandment—my soul's dear word.

I pray to my soul.
All injustice the earth owns to is the work of man outside himself
When man works inside himself he will achieve the last charity:
Then superior and inferior will be dismissed,
Then possession and poverty will be dismissed,
Then nothing will be left but God, nothing but my divine unit and yours,
The self raised high to self devoutly lifted in prayer.