Father of Women and Other Poems — Free Will

FREE WILL

Dear are some hidden things My soul has sealed in silence; past delights, Hope unconfessed; desires with hampered wings, Remembered in the nights.

But my best treasures are Ignoble, undelightful, abject, cold;

Yet O!

profounder hoards oracular No reliquaries hold.

There lie my trespasses, Abjured but not disowned.

I'll not accuse Determinism, nor, as the Master {26} says, Charge even "the poor Deuce."

Under my hand they lie, My very own, my proved iniquities, And though the glory of my life go by I hold and garner these.