Who Shall Deliver Me?

Who Shall Deliver Me?

by Christina Rosetti, Selected Poems, 1996

God strengthen me to bear myself;

That heaviest weight of all to bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;

I lock my door and bar them out,

The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

If I could once lay down myself,

And start self-purged upon the race

That all must run! Death runs apace.

If I could set aside myself,

And start with lightened heart upon

The road by all men overgone!

God harden me against myself,

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;

My hollowest friend, my deadilest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,

Can roll the strangling road from me,

Break off the yoke and set me free.