The chance is the remotest Of its going much longer unnoticed That I'm now keeping pace With the headlong human race. And some of them may mind My staying back behind To take life at a walk In philosophic talk; Though as yet they only smile At how slow I do a mile, With tolerant reproach For me as an Old Slow Coach. But I know them what they are: As they get more nuclear And more bigoted in reliance On the gospel of modern science, For them my loitering around At less than the speed of sound Or even the speed of light Won't seem unheretical quite. They may end by banishing me To the penal colony They are thinking of pretty soon Establishing on the moon. With a can of condensed air I could go almost anywhere, Or rather submit to be sent As a noble experiment. They should try one wastrel first On a landscape so accursed To see how long they should wait Before they make it a state. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LYMAN KING by EDGAR LEE MASTERS FOR OUR BETTER GRACES by JAMES GALVIN GUARDIANSHIP by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON HER EYES TWIN POOLS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD; DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1878 by SIDNEY LANIER |