I feel I am, I only know I am,
And plod upon the earth as dull and void:
Earth’s prison chilled my body with its dram
Of dullness, and my soaring thoughts destroyed.
I fled to solitudes from passion’s dream,
But strife pursued-I only know I am.
I was a being created in the race
Of men, disdaining bounds of space and time,
A spirit that could travel o’er the space
Of earth and heaven, like a thought sublime-
Tracing creation, like my Maker free,-
A soul unshackled-like eternity:
Spuring earth’s vain and soul debasing thrall-
Bu now I only know I am,-that’s all.
de John Clare (1842)
