This poem was first published in Songs in Wiltshire in 1909, and also appeared in Selected Poems (1925). blank My soul is free as ambient air,    Although my body pinioned is; The slave-born fetters that I wear    Are dear companions of my bliss, That lighten, while they still confound;    Who wears the rose heeds not the thorn, Small time will heal the quickest wound,    And wrongs are milder smoothly borne. The dearly-dreaded dissonance    Of wolfish din and owlish cries Fades to a low-lipped resonance,    Sour speech to sweetest symphonies; For, though my drooping spirit faints,    And high Imagination falls At hourly-idle cold complaints    Wide-echoed round my prison walls, The secret spring of poesy -    The scented soul's divinest part - Wells up and sweetens inwardly    All the deep bitters of the heart. Though I am in great company    Yet walk I in deep solitude, For plenty is in poverty,    And famine in the multitude; And when I am at duty's post    I breathe an inward-deepening moan, That, while I am attended most,    Then do I languish most alone. Poems index Alphabetical list of poems online