As By Fire.

        Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning
    For spiritual perfection here below,
        This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning,
    Seems my determined foe,

        So actively it makes a stern resistance,
    So cruelly sometimes it wages war
        Against a wholly spiritual existence
    Which I am striving for.

        It interrupts my soul's intense devotions;
    Some hope it strangles, of divinest birth,
        With a swift rush of violent emotions
    Which link me to the earth.

        It is as if two mortal foes contended
    Within my bosom in a deadly strife,
        One for the loftier aims for souls intended,
    One for the earthly life.

        And yet I know this very war within me,
    Which brings out all my will-power and control,
        This very conflict at the last shall win me
    The loved and longed-for goal.

        The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel
    Is the white light that shows me my own strength.
        A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel,
    It may become at length.

        Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
    I sometimes wonder if we shall not find
        That not by deeds, but by what we've resisted,
    Our places are assigned.