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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FUTURE SPEAKS, by                    
First Line: Hang not the full weight of your hope on me
Last Line: Seed and source. Your now contains us both.
Subject(s): Future


Hang not the full weight of your hope on me:
Nor burden me with tall
Dreams and yearnings. For when I come to birth
Out of this ancient earth,
Your disappointment, free
To judge, shall find me small
As now you are. Burdens the soul is loth
To bear will stunt my growth.
Nevertheless you call --
Scorning your present as of little worth,
Dreaming of plenty in desuetude and dearth.
But know your present is a crystal ball
Of pregnant girth,
Elastic to embrace infinity.
In it you can descry
Next season's pupa in this year's butterfly --
In this year's worm next season's moth.
So linger not. Look if you will.
It flees with gazing. But you have power to fill
This instant -- the only time that is yours
Of all the precious unreturning hours.
Hang not your moment like a dangling sloth
Upon time's tree.
Your trice is transient but capacious; and holds all
Of me and the past together, in mutual
Seed and source. Your now contains us both.





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