Classic Poem

I stood in the market-place,
Where busy merchants were;
But sorrow and discontent
Arose within my breast.

The stream of wealth ran there,
And they were as green rushes —
They that its waters laved;
But where I stood it took a turn,
And left me poor and bare
I had no art to bring it near,
No kindred wealth to attract;
So I stood unwater'd, and the ground
About me was so parch'd
That vegetation shunn'd me in a circle.

In this desertedness my heart gave way;
My existence seem'd to shrivel up,
And smoulder into ashes.
I felt as an incumbrance,
And wish'd myself unborn.

But from the smouldering ashes sprang a germ,
Expanding into life;
I felt a new creation coming o'er me;
And those around, amid whom I was insignificance,
I bounded now;
Their wealth and themselves were mine;
My eyes were turned inward, and I saw
The world was in my soul.

Fortune is not without us, at a distance;
It is within us, here.
And he that chaseth wealth,
Chaseth a shadow that escapes him
But let him stand, he finds
The shadow was his own,
And all that he had follow'd,
Flow'd out of himself. —
Look in, and know the mind is all that is;
And knowing, feeling it is all,
Then have ye all.

I did not dream such wealth
Was in the market-place;
But there it is — among the wheels of trade:
Yet great ones pass it by;
And only we, the friendless, poor, despised,
Can truly gather it.