Myself
Christina G. Rossetti
God strengthen me to bear myself; All others are outside myself; I lock my door upon myself, If I could once lay down myself, If I could set aside myself, God harden my against myself, Myself, arch-traitor to myself; Yet One there is can curb myself, That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
I lock my door and bar them out,
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
And start self-purged upon the race
That all must run! Death runs apace.
And start with lightened heart upon
The road by all men overgone!
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.
Can roll the strangling load from me,
