| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | I Would Be Free | | By Eda Lou Walton |
| | From “Beyond Sorrow”
I WOULD be free of you, my body; | |
| Free of you, too, my little soul. | |
| I am so tired of this mocking hobby, | |
| I am so tired of this imaged whole. | |
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| I would be neither base nor godly. | 5 |
| Loathing myself, could I bear then | |
| To see all life and suffering oddly | |
| Twisted and shaped to the needs of men? | |
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| I would be neither my own nor another’s: | |
| I would not tend for myself, nor hate | 10 |
| The flame of silence that in me smothers | |
| Under the crackling smoke of fate. | |
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| God!—what is there for such as in me | |
| Cannot be two and are not whole? | |
| Within the spirit dwells the body, | 15 |
| Upon the body feeds the soul. | | | | |
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