Skip to content
Linespedia

All That I Was I Am

Topics: classic

Hateful it seems now, yet was I not happy?     Starved of the things I loved, I did not know     I loved them, and was happy lacking them.     If bitterness comes now (and that is hell)     It is when I forget that I was happy,     Accusing Fate, that sits and nods and laughs,     Because I was not born a bird or tree.     Let accusation sleep, lest God's own finger     Point angry from the cloud in which He hides.     Who may regret what was, since it has made     Himself himself? All that I was I am,     And the old childish joy now lives in me     At sight of a green field or a green tree.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Hateful it seems now, yet was I not happy?..."

Exploring the themes of classic, John Frederick Freeman delivers a powerful performance in "All That I Was I Am"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"Away, away--     Through that strange void and vast     Brimmed with dying day;     Away,     So that I feel     Only the wind     Of the wo"

"The moon gave no light.     The clouds rode slowly over, broad and white,     From the soft south west.     The wind, that cannot rest,     So"

"That you might happier be than all the rest,     Than I who have been happy loving you,     Of all the innocent even the happiest--     This I"

"It was the lovely moon--she lifted     Slowly her white brow among     Bronze cloud-waves that ebbed and drifted     Faintly, faintlier afar."

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"Away, away--     Through that strange void and vas..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.