The poem
When wilt thou wake, O Mother, wake and see - As one who, held in trance, has laboured long By vacant rote and prepossession strong - The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;
Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong, Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song, And curious blends of ache and ecstasy? -
Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyes All that Life's palpitating tissues feel, How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise? -
Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of shame, Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame, Or patiently adjust, amend, and heal?