Solitude

I was fretted with husks of men; I cried out to be alone, To be free, To run in the wind. Solitude was to me as the dream of a country well to a fevered man. I ran away to be alone. And there were the stars, and the sea, and the sun coming up out of the sea. And I went mad with the wind’s song. Then I chanted my ardor to the air— But it came back clanging about my ears: The stars were too near, I was compressed between horizons; I choked in the wind and the sun! In my wrath I strode back to men And smote the husks asunder. From them came forth The whole of me that I had lacked. For the first time I was alone, Alone with all of myself, In splendid peace.