Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/160

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POEMS BY ISAAC ROSENBERG

SPIRITUAL ISOLATION: A FRAGMENT

My Maker shunneth me:
Even as a wretch stricken with leprosy,
So hold I pestilent supremacy.
Yea! He hath fled far as the uttermost star,
Beyond the unperturbed fastnesses of night
And dreams that bastioned are
By fretted towers of sleep that scare His light.

Of wisdom writ, whereto
My burdened feet may haste withouten rue,
I may not spell—and I am sore to do.
Yea, all (seeing my Maker hath such dread),
Even mine own self-love, wists not but to fly
To Him, and sore besped
Leaves me, its captain, in such mutiny.

Will, deemed incorporate
With me, hath flown ere love, to expiate
Its sinful stay where He did habitate.

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