I Am

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I AM.

I am! The ages on the ages roll;

And what I am, I was, and I shall be:

By slow growth filling higher Destiny,

And widening, ever, to the widening Goal. I am the Stone that slept; down deep in me

That old, old sleep has left its centurine trace;

I am the Plant that dreamed; and lo! still see

That dream-life dwelling on the Human Face.

I slept, I dreamed, I wakened: I am Man!

The hut grows Palaces; the depths breed light;

Still On! Forms pass; but Form yields kinglier Might!

The singer, dying where his song began,

In Me yet lives; and yet again shall he

Unseal the lips of greater songs To Be;

For mine the thousand tongues of Immortality.

Voltairine de Cleyre, “I Am,” The Open Court 6, no. 3 (January 21, 1892): 3118-3119.