Jonathan Swift Somers (Author of the Spooniad) -- Spoon River Anthology

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This poem was included in the original 1915 edition.

AFTER you have enriched your soul
To the highest point,
With books, thought, suffering,
The understanding of many personalities,
The power to interpret glances, silences,
The pauses in momentous transformations,
The genius of divination and prophecy;
So that you feel able at times to hold the world
In the hollow of your hand;
Then, if, by the crowding of so many powers
Into the compass of your soul,
Your soul takes fire,
And in the conflagration of your soul
The evil of the world is lighted up and made clear--
Be thankful if in that hour of supreme vision
Life does not fiddle.

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