Free Will

Dear are some hidden things My soul has sealed in silence; past delights; Hope unconfessed; desires with hampered wings, Remembered in the nights.

But my best treasures are Ignoble, undelightful, abject, cold; Yet O! profounder hoards oracular No reliquaries hold.

There lie my trespasses, Abjured but not disowned. I'll not accuse Determinism, nor, as the Master* says, Charge even "the poor Deuce."

Under my hand they lie, My very own, my proved iniquities; And though the glory of my life go by I hold and garner these.

How else, how otherwhere, How otherwise, shall I discern and grope For lowliness? How hate, how love, how dare, How weep, how hope?

*George Meredith