I'VE watched thee, Scarab! Yea, an hour in vain I've watched thee, slowly toiling up the hill, Pushing thy lump of mud before thee still With patience infinite and stubborn strain. Strive as thou mayst, spare neither time nor pain, To screen thy burden from all chance of ill; Push, push, with all a beetle's force of will, Thy ball, alas! rolls ever down again. Toil without end! And why? That after thee Dim hosts of groping Scarabs too shall climb This self-same height? Accursed progeny Of Sisyphus, what antenatal crime Has doomed us too to roll incessantly Life's Stone, recoiling from the Alps of time? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE TRENCHES by RICHARD ALDINGTON THE ORANGE PICKER by DAVID IGNATOW UTOPIA by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BEFORE A PAINTING by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON NEBUCHADNEZZAR: OR EATING GRASS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS OLD TRAILS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |