O World of many worlds

O World of many worlds, O life of lives,

What centre hast thou? Where am I?

O whither is it thy fierce onrush drives?

Fight I, or drift; or stand; or fly?

The loud machinery spins, points work in touch;

Wheels whirl in systems, zone in zone.

Myself having sometime moved with such,

Would strike a centre of mine own.

Lend hand, O Fate, for I am down, am lost!

Fainting by violence of the Dance���

Ah thanks, I stand ��� the floor is crossed,

And I am where but few advance.

I see men far below me where they swarm���

(Haply above me ��� be it so!

Does space to compass-points conform,

And can we say a star stands high or low?)

Not more complex the millions of the stars

Than are the hearts of mortal brothers;

As far remote as Neptune from small Mars

Is one man���s nature from another���s.

But all hold course unalterably fixed;

They follow destinies foreplanned:

I envy not these lives in their faith unmixed,

I would not step with such a band.

To be a meteor, fast, eccentric, lone,

Lawless; in passage through all spheres,

Warning the earth of wider ways unknown

And rousing men with heavenly fears���

This is the track reserved for my endeavour;

Spanless the erring way I wend.

Blackness of darkness is my meed for ever?

And barren plunging without end?

O glorious fear! Those other wandering souls

High burning through that outer bourne

Are lights unto themselves. Fair aureoles

Self-radiated these are worn.

And when in after times those stars return

And strike once more earth���s horizon,

They gather many satellites astern,

For they are greater than this system���s Sun.

~ Wilfred Owen