In Those Years

In those years, people will say, we lost track

of the meaning of we, of you

we found ourselves

reduced to I

and the whole thing became

silly, ironic, terrible:

we were trying to live a personal life

and, yes, that was the only life

we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged

into our personal weather

They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove

along the shore, through rages of fog

where we stood, saying I

(Adrienne Rich)

When I shall sleep

Oh, for the time when I shall sleep

Without identity,

And never care how rain may steep,

Or snow may cover me!

No promised heaven these wild desires

Could all, or half, fulful;

No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,

Subdue this quenchless will!

So said I, and still say the same;

Still, to my death, will say—

Three gods within this little frame

Are warring night and day:

Heaven could not hold them all, and yet

They all are held in me;

And must be mine till I forget

My present entity!

Oh, for the time when in my breast

Their struggles will be o’er!

Oh, for the day when I shall rest,

And never suffer more!

(Emily Bronte)

M!rage

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,

Was but a dream; and now I wake

Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,

For a dream’s sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,

A weeping willow in a lake;

I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt

For a dream’s sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;

My silent heart, lie still and break:

Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed

For a dream’s sake.

(Christina Rossetti)