Classic Poem

I AM savage for life and the lusts
Of beckoning quests I have banished.
I am glutted with beauty's face
And the brush I paint her with.
I am sick of the dreams and dusts
Of the soul of me — of the vanished
Lone years I have spent in chase
Of the luring lips of Myth.

I was suckled for more than to fling
The blood of my heart on a palette.
I was given the eye of a god
For more than a picture's worth.
I have felt the ineffable sting
Of Life — though I be Art's valet.
I have painted the cloud — or clod —
Who should have possessed the earth.

The Caesar in me, and the Christ,
Cry out to be given power.
The Antony in my veins
Would waste a world's throne for his queen.
And what for Ulysses sufficed —
The infinite far foam-flower —
That only would quench the thirst
Of my soul for worlds unseen.

The doom of it, God, do I hate,
That a man with the might of many
Must hold to the task of one,
Compelled, by an ancient awe,
To learn that no will is so great
As not to be bound by any;
That space itself is grooved — for the sun
To glide through under law.