Slave or free?

Free, not a slave.” Therein a question lies. Upon the verge of dim futurity I stand, and try to pierce the gathering clouds Of my perplexity.

I send a backward glance upon the past And fairy dreams and woe-worn vigils rise, And gleams of golden sunshine after storms, Half blind mine eyes.

I see dark rocks ’gainst which the stream of time Hath dashed me, or ’gainst which I steered my course. Who knows if Destiny or Will hath been The motive force?

Am I a puppet worked by leading strings, And turned this way or that as Fate decrees, Borne onward by a flood whose waters roll To unknown seas?

Must I drift on? and are my struggles vain? The hand I lift all powerless to control? To fight and fail still be my maddening lot, And lose my soul?

Why have a soul, if that its fate is fixed? If that its noble impulses but serve To carry on some fore-determined plan Without the power to swerve?

Am I fore-doomed to tread a destined path? Say, is the god-like found in such estate? May I not rather and more nobly trust My life to regulate?

If that the end is known, can I be free? Does not that knowledge o’er me cast a chain? Free and not free—an unsolved problem still Must life remain.

Tell me, my soul, thou spark of the Divine Breathed into me, am I a fettered slave? Can I not shape the path that lies between Me and the grave?

O curious life! O complicated web! Thy tangled meshes subtly compass me. Strange doubts perplex; yet still my soul asserts The Will is free!