I Am

I am - yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish in oblivion’s frost,

I lift my hands and drop my hands in prayer,
The secret loneliness of silence sighs;
But the dumb silence, like my sorrow, is
A more solemn music than a thousand lies.

• John Clare