At Tarragona

If I could know but when and why This piece of thoughtless dust begins To think, and straightway I am I, And these bright hopes and these brave sins, That have been freer than the air, Circle their freedom with my span; If I could know but why this care Is mine and not the care or man; Why, thus unwilling, I rejoice, And will the good I do not do, And with the same particular voice Speak the old folly and the new; If I could know, seeing my soul A white ship with a bending sail, Rudderless, and without a goal, Fly seaward, humble to the gale, Why, knowing not from whence I came, Nor why I seek I know not what, I bear this heavy, separate name, While winds and waters bear it not; And why the unlimited earth delights In life, not knowing breath from breath, While I, that count my days and nights, Fear thought in life, and life in death.