— James Oppenheim“Why do I not sink down with unending despair? Yesterday I walked the Earth like the shell of a man: For neither in the world was good nor yet in myself... Only a dark fret of dead days flicked me. Now morning breaks with rain, And I am closed like a withering thing in grayness... Why do I not sink down in unending despair? Is it I that was once a seed and shall soon be dust? Is not life two silences divided by one brief suffering? The two ends of a century know me not: Unborn, then dead, they find me... Yet do I not sink down... For life is a golden wind of wine, And it blows through me, and drunk with its glory My heart forgets the dark.”
Life