Page:American Poetry 1922.djvu/121

 I fear that I will die as I have lived, A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars, A pagan killed by weltschmerz. . . I remember, Once when I stood with Hegel at a window, I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee, Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars. Something I said about "those high Abode of all the blest" provoked his temper. "Abodes? The stars?" He froze me with a sneer, "A light eruption on the firmament." "But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere Where virtue is rewarded when we die?" And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim. So you demand a bonus since you spent One lifetime and refrained from poisoning Your testy grandmother!" . . . How much of him Remains in me—even when I am caught In dreams of death and immortality.

To be eternal—what a brilliant thought! It must have been conceived and coddled first By some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg His slippers warm, his children amply nursed, Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand, His nightcap on his head, one summer night Sat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grand If all of this could last beyond a doubt— This placid moon, this plump gemütklichkeit; 107