A strange confinement presses on my soul
Not bars nor walls, not love nor even hate
Is jailer, nor the sovereign God, nor fate,
But only reason's cry to face the whole
Of what I am, and see and search the heart.
By this, my self betrays my opened life,
Exposed and raw. The lively scalpel knife
Of truth, incised reveals - what was a part
Of me, is nothing more than memory's lies.
My treasured, nurtured, edifice of faith -
Now shimmering: a weakling faded wraith,
A monument to once enlightened eyes.
When comes the happiness to one set free?
Is helpless wisdom truth's last gift to me?