George Gray

Edgar Lee Masters

 
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me--
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
 

Poems by This Author

Alexander Throckmorton by Edgar Lee Masters
In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
Anne Rutledge by Edgar Lee Masters
Out of me unworthy and unknown
Fiddler Jones by Edgar Lee Masters
The earth keeps some vibration going
Fletcher McGee by Edgar Lee Masters
She took my strength by minutes,
Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
Minerva Jones by Edgar Lee Masters
I am Minerva, the village poetess,


Further Reading

Poems about Ambition
Essay on Man, Epistle II
by Alexander Pope
All those Attempts in the Changing Room!
by Anne Stevenson
Civilization
by Carl Phillips
Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert
Famous
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Fisherman
by Kurt Brown
See It Through
by Edgar Guest
That Everything's Inevitable
by Katy Lederer
The Ecstasy
by Phillip Lopate
To You
by Walt Whitman
Untranslatable Song
by Claudia Reder