Classic Poem

When I am most at home with myself,
When I welcome myself at the front door and the back door,
When I welcome myself returned from heaven and returned from hell,
When the worst of me meets the best of me on equal terms,
Then I feel at last that I am getting acquainted with myself,
Then I shake hands with the universe and begin to see its meanings.
I was in the farther past a stranger to myself,
I wandered alone in the world seeking a companion,
I lied to myself out of the fulness of words,
I assailed myself out of the fulness of deeds.
There I was forever the criminal in my own dock,
There I was perpetually self accused,
There I was condemned to hard penances and forfeits of servitude,
There I was counsel for my own conviction,
There I was in session as a court of last resort hearing my own appeal with deaf ears.
The one thing in me cried out against the other thing in me,
Over vast distances calling I challenged myself to defeat,
From the faroff abysses of self discord came the nearby despairs of the gulf.

I think the soul may travel many hells and come from them without hurt,
But I think that when the soul passes through the hell of self it is wounded to the center.
I did not know what my sorrow was all about,
I did not know why I wandered earths through looking for something I could not find,
I did not know why I was always demanding abroad that which is always at home and only at home:
But there I was, lost, famished, starving, in the wilderness of my own unstructured self,
Calling to strangers by name to yield me that which I alone possessed
But now I have been introduced to myself,
And each day the two of us are becoming better acquainted,
And as we become better acquainted we become better friends,
And we find in each other unsuspected good points,
And we no longer seem to need witnesses and evidences and arguments,
And I look about and see no judge any longer sitting on our case,
And we are becoming wonderful cronies, myself and me,
And each time we meet we have something new to tell each other,
And that is why I have said that I am getting quite at home with myself,
And that when I am most at home with myself the universe opens its heart to me
And all mortal severances lapse in immortal joy.