Caroling Dusk/My House
MY HOUSE
For this peculiar tint that paints my housePeculiar in an alien atmosphereWhere other houses wear a kindred hue,I have a stirring always very rareAnd romance-making in my ardent blood,That channels through my body like a flood.
I know the dark delight of being strange,The penalty of difference in the crowd,The loneliness of wisdom among fools,Yet never have I felt but very proud,Though I have suffered agonies of hell,Of living in my own peculiar cell.
There is an exaltation of man’s life,His hidden life, that he alone can feel.The blended fires that heat his veins within,Shaping his metals into finest steel,Are elements from his own native earth,That the wise gods bestowed on him at birth.
Oh each man’s mind contains an unknown realmWalled in from other men however near,
And unimagined in their highest flightsOf comprehension or of vision clear;A realm where he withdraws to contemplateInfinity and his own finite state.
Thence he may sometimes catch a god-like glimpseOf mysteries that seem beyond life’s bar;Thence he may hurl his little shaft at heavenAnd bring down accidentally a star,And drink its foamy dust like sparkling wineAnd echo accents of the laugh divine.
Then he may fall into a drunken sleepAnd wake up in his same house painted blueOr white or green or red or brown or black—His house, his own, whatever be the hue.But things for him will not be what they seemTo average men since he has dreamt his dream!