Song

Song - context Summary

Published 1956

"Song" was first published in 1956 in Allen Ginsberg’s collection Howl and Other Poems. It condenses Beat-era preoccupations into a brief lyric that insists love is both burden and sustenance. The poem pairs spiritual yearning with erotic, bodily return, framing rest and redemption as possible only through reciprocal love. Its direct, declamatory tone and emphasis on desire align it with Ginsberg’s broader challenge to mid-century social and poetic norms.

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The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, the weight we carry is love. Who can deny? In dreams it touches the body, in thought constructs a miracle, in imagination anguishes till born in human-- looks out of the heart burning with purity-- for the burden of life is love, but we carry the weight wearily, and so must rest in the arms of love at last, must rest in the arms of love. No rest without love, no sleep without dreams of love-- be mad or chill obsessed with angels or machines, the final wish is love --cannot be bitter, cannot deny, cannot withhold if denied: the weight is too heavy --must give for no return as thought is given in solitude in all the excellence of its excess. The warm bodies shine together in the darkness, the hand moves to the center of the flesh, the skin trembles in happiness and the soul comes joyful to the eye-- yes, yes, that's what I wanted, I always wanted, I always wanted, to return to the body where I was born.