YEAR that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed
         froze me,
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me,
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?
* --Walt Whitman

Circumstance that trembles and reels beneath me!
I am weighted on one side by a pocketful of pennies
         and an aching, blister'd foot.
A cruel wind blusters through my head screaming unintelligible whispers of encouragement.
Am I what I think? Said I to myself.
Would it not be better to simply be what I am, or what I am not?
And if I give all of myself, will I fuse and strengthen? Or will I dissolve?
* --bryan