As By Fire

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855 (Janesville) – 1919



Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning

For spiritual perfection here below,

This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning,

Seems my determined foe,

So actively it makes a stern resistance,

So cruelly sometimes it wages war

Against a wholly spiritual existence

Which I am striving for.

It interrupts my soul's intense devotions;

Some hope it strangles, of divinest birth,

With a swift rush of violent emotions

Which link me to the earth.

It is as if two mortal foes contended

Within my bosom in a deadly strife,

One for the loftier aims for souls intended,

One for the earthly life.

And yet I know this very war within me,

Which brings out all my will-power and control,

This very conflict at the last shall win me

The loved and longed-for goal.

The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel

Is the white light that shows me my own strength.

A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel,

It may become at length.

Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted,

I sometimes wonder if we shall not find

That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted,

Our places are assigned.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

57 sec read
57

Quick analysis:

Scheme A B A B C D C D C E X E F G X G H I H I J K J K F L F L
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,043
Words 191
Stanzas 28
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. more…

All Ella Wheeler Wilcox poems | Ella Wheeler Wilcox Books

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