Poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I Am the World

I am the song, that rests upon the cloud;
      I am the sun:
I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud,
      When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree;
      The flower uncurled:
I am the melancholy of the sea;
      I am the world.

The other souls that, passing in their place,
      Each in their groove;
Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace,
      Speak and reprove.

“O atom of that law, by which the earth
      Is poised and whirled;
Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert
      You are the world.”

Am I not one with all the things that be
      Warm in the sun?
All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see,
      Till all be done.

Of song and shine, of changing leaf apart,
      Of bud uncurled:
With all the senses pulsing at my heart,
      I am the world.

One day the song that drifts upon the wind,
      I shall not hear;
Nor shall the rosy shoots to eyes grown blind
      Again appear.

Deaf, in the dark, I shall arise and throw
      From off my soul,
The withered world with all its joy and woe,
      That was my goal.

I shall arise, and like a shooting star
      Slip from my place;
So lingering see the old world from afar
      Revolve in space.

And know more things than all the wise may know
      Till all be done;
Till One shall come who, breathing on the stars,
      Blows out the sun.

1. Unknown Ideal
2. The Fair Little Maiden
3. The Ballad of the Little Black Hound
4. When I Shall Rise
5. Vale

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