My captain calls to me to join the fray,
Fame holds her fillet ready for my brow,
Love stands with aching, open arms, and Thou,
O God, to whom I impotently pray,
Art ever ready to receive me—yea,
Dost yearn for my poor prisoned soul—then how
Becomes it that I linger in this slough
Of idle, unclean days, till I grow gray?
Bound am I to a corpse, face unto face,
Of old iniquities, and dead desire,
Which, fair and young, of old did I embrace.
Now chains of habit, forged in Passion’s fire,
Hold me forever in this durance base:
Struggling to rise, I wallow in the mire.