Paul Laurence Dunbar - Unexpressed lyrics

DEEP in my heart that aches with the repression, And strives with plenitude of bitter pain, There lives a thought that clamors for expression, And spends its undelivered force in vain. What boots it that some other may have thought it? The right of thoughts' expression is divine; The price of pain I pay for it has bought it, I care not who lays claim to it — 't is mine! And yet not mine until it be delivered; The manner of its birth shall prove the test. Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered — I beat my brow — the thought still unexpressed.