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Wilfred Owen - O World Of Many Worlds
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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.
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