Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/287

Rh Oblivion here thy wisdom is,

Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;

For a proud idleness like this

Crowns all thy mean affairs.

TERMINUS

is time to be old,

To take in sail:—

The god of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: 'No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There 's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Timely wise accept the terms,

Soften the fall with wary foot;

A little while

Still plan and smile,