| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 297. I am the World |
| By Dora Sigerson Shorter (b. 1866) |
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| I AM the song, that rests upon the cloud; | |
| I am the sun; | |
| I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud, | |
| When dusk is done. | |
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| I am the changing colours of the tree; | 5 |
| The flower uncurled; | |
| I am the melancholy of the sea; | |
| I am the world. | |
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| The other souls that, passing in their place, | |
| Each in his groove; | 10 |
| Outstretching hands that chain me and embrace, | |
| Speak and reprove. | |
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| ‘O atom of that law, by which the earth | |
| Is poised and whirled; | |
| Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert | 15 |
| You are the world.’ | |
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| Am I not one with all the things that be | |
| Warm in the sun? | |
| All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see, | |
| Till all be done. | 20 |
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| Of song and shine, of changing leaf apart, | |
| Of bud uncurled: | |
| With all the senses pulsing at my heart, | |
| I am the world. | |
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| One day the song that drifts upon the wind | 25 |
| I shall not hear: | |
| Nor shall the rosy shoots to eyes grown blind | |
| Again appear. | |
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| Deaf, in the dark, I shall arise and throw | |
| From off my soul | 30 |
| The withered world with all its joy and woe, | |
| That was my goal. | |
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| I shall arise, and like a shooting star | |
| Slip from my place; | |
| So lingering see the old world from afar | 35 |
| Revolve in space. | |
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| And know more things than all the wise may know | |
| Till all be done; | |
| Till One shall come who, breathing on the stars, | |
| Blows out the sun. | 40 |
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