[Rowena:]
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A wild being from birth
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My spirit spurns control
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Wondering the wide earth searching for my soul
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While all the world is chiding
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In visions of the dark night
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I have had a waking dream
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A holy dream
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A holy dream
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A waking dream of life and light
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That cheered me as a lovely beam
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A lonely spirit guiding
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With a ray turned back upon the past
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While I aghast
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Sit motionless through the misty night
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Dimly peering at what once shone bright
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Peeking wariy at what shone afar
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What could there be more purely bright
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In Truth's day-star?
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[Poe:]
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In the consideration of the faculties
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And impulses of the human soul
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In consideration of our arrogance
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Our radical, primitive, irreducible arrogance of reason
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We have all overlooked the propensity
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We saw no need for it
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The paradoxical something which we may call perverseness
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A mobile without motive
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Through its promptings, we act without comprehensible object
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Induction would have brought phrenology to admit this
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We act for the reason we should not
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For certain minds this is absolutely irresistible
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The conviction of the wrong or impolicy of an action
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Is often the unconquerable force
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It is a primitive impulse
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Elementary
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The overwhelming tendency to do
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Wrong for the wrong's sake
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This impels us to its persecutions
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Oh holy dream
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We persist in acts
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Because we feel that we should not persist in them
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This is the combativeness of phrenology
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[Rowena:]
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We have a task before us which must be speedily performed
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We know it will be ruinous to delay
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Trumpet-tongued, the important crisis of our life calls
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We glow
|
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[Poe:]
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We are consumed with eagerness to commence work
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Yet a shadow flits across the brain
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The impulse increases to a wish
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The wish to a desire
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The desire to uncontrollable longing
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And the longing in defiance of all consequences is indulged
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We put off all until tomorrow
|
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[Rowena:]
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We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us
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The definite with the indefinite
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The substance with the shadow
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There is no answer except that we feel perverse
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The shadow prevails
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Our energy returns
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We will commit now
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We will labor now
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Oh holiest of dreams
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But it is too late
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We stand upon the brink of the precipice
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[Poe:]
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We grow sick and dizzy
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We go to shrink from danger but instead we approach it
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We are intoxicated by the mere idea
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Of a fall from such a great height
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This fall, this rushing annihilation
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For the very reason
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It contains the most loathsome and ghastly images
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Of death and suffering
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For this reason do we now most impetuously desire it
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There is no passion in nature
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So demonic as the passion of him who
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Shuddering upon the edge, meditates a plunge
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We will these actions merely
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Because we feel that we should not
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Having realized this, I swoon
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It is the spirit of the perverse
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The idea of a poison candle struck my fancy
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And I procured one for my victim
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I will not vex you with impertinent details
|
But suffice it to say the verdict was
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"Death by the visitation of God"
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[Rowena:]
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All went well for me
|
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[Poe:]
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All went well for me
|
|
[Rowena:]
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His estate inherited
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I reveled in absolute security
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I would never be found out
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I was safe
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I was safe
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If I did not prove fool enough to make open confession
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[Poe:]
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If I did not prove fool enough to make public confession
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No sooner had I uttered those words
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Than I felt an icy chill creep into my heart
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I made a strong effort
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To shake off this nightmare of the soul
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I laughed
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I whistled
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I walked and then walked faster
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I thought I saw a formless shape approaching me from behind
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And then I ran
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I pushed and shoved blindly
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I thought I left a hand upon my throat
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No mortal hand
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I screamed
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And then clearly, clearly
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I enunciated pregnant sentences
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That consigned me to the hangman and the hell
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The fullest judicial conviction
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Today I wear chains but tomorrow I shall be fetterless
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But where?
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Oh holy dream
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Oh beam of light
|
I fall prostrate with excitement this holy night
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|
-----------------
|
A Wild Being From Birth
|
| Lou Reed |
