Fear and Anxiety

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid.

And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter.

but beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible.

Keep cold, young orchard. Goodbye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below.

Should the wide world roll away Leaving black terror Limitless night, Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand Would be to me essential If thou and thy white arms were there And the fall to doom a long way.

The night can sweat with terror as before We pieced our thoughts into philosophy, And planned to bring the world under a rule, Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.

I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

An’ all us other children, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ’at Annie tells about, An’ the Gobble-uns ’at gits you Ef you Watch Out!

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night.

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment Day.

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo’d by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!

Elysium is as far as to The very nearest Room If in that Room a Friend await Felicity or Doom— What Fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure The accent of a coming Foot— The opening of a Door—

But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter breathing And Zero at the Bone—

Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend— Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind.

Pain—has an Element of Blank— It cannot recollect When it begun—or if there were A time when it was not—

If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year, Shall that exclude the hope—foreclose the fear?

Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.