Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOW LITTLE CURIOUS IS MAN, by HENRY DAVID THOREAU



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOW LITTLE CURIOUS IS MAN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
Last Line: Six feet from where his grovelling feet do stand
Subject(s): Life; Human Behavior


How little curious is man
Who hath not searched his mystery a span
But dreams of mines of treasure
Which he neglects to measure
For three score years and ten
Walks to and fro amid his fellow men
Oer this firm tract of continental land
His fancy bearing no divining wand.
Our uninquiring corpses lie more low
Than our lifes curiosity doth go
Our most ambitious steps climb not so high
As in their hourly sport the sparrows fly.
And yonder cloud's blown farther in a day
Than our most vagrant feet may ever stray.
Surely, O Lord, he hath not greatly erred
Who hath so little from his birth place stirred.
He wanders through this low and shallow world
Scarcely his bolder thoughts and hopes unfurled
Through this low walled world which his huge sin
Hath hardly room to rest and harbor in.
Bearing his head just oer some fallow ground
Some cowslip'd meadows where the bitterns sound.
He wanders round until his end draws nigh
And then lays down his aged head to die.
And this is life''"this is that famous strife.

His head doth coast a fathom from the land
Six feet from where his grovelling feet do stand.





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