I am

I am — yet what I am, none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost: —
I am the self-consumer of my woes; —
They rise and vanish in oblivion's host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes: —
And yet I am, and live — like vapours tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, —
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my lifes esteems;
Even the dearest, that I love the best
Are strange — nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes, where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God;
And sleep as I in childhood, sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below — above the vaulted sky.

[Image: Chris Spracklen]