WITHOUT beginning and without an end Endures the everlasting dust Of stars and men, still changing, as it must, Into such shadow shapes as circumstance may send. Cometh a farewell hour when we shall part And I surcease, while you continue; For immortality was ever in you: You are intrinsical to nature's changeless heart. Your lime and water built me strong and sure— A thing to bend, but not to break; Little enough to give and much to take; Welded to play a part and for a span endure. If chance had willed to habit this our life In adamant and tempered steel, Hundred upon a hundred years might wheel Before man's dwelling-place were done with thought and strife. A synthesis of centuries had been Enough for wisdom; age on age Had lit, perchance, his lengthened pilgrimage With understanding clear and prescience serene. But few the years that roll to make his day; Frail are the walls of his brief home And short the journey he may hope to roam Before the final storm that crumbles up the clay. Fore-knowing which, his meagre dole he spends In strife and passion, waste and war, In shifts and strivings to defeat the Law, In every mad device to speed unfruitful ends. While Reason, winging beyond space and time, Still cries that wondrous man shall mount Till not the far-flung universe can count, Or mightiest sun reveal, a spirit more sublime. Cantle of earth, we'll wish each other well. This throb of living yet called me Is, of your everlasting destiny, A fleeting mote wherein your permutations fell. Turn now to cloud, to foothold for the corn, To moonlit foam of woodland fountain, To flower-light upon a mead, or mountain— Aught that may bring a smile for brothers yet unborn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAUST: SCENE 1. PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE SONNET TO MRS. REYNOLD'S CAT by JOHN KEATS THE ARROW AND THE SONG by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE END OF THE DAY by DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT THE SWING by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON SEEING A STRANGE WOMAN DEAD by A. G. BECKMANN JERUSALEM; THE EMANATION OF THE GIANT ALBION: CHAPTER 3 by WILLIAM BLAKE |