Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/290

254 And passing, light my sunken turf

Moist perhaps by ocean surf,

Forgotten amid splendid tombs,

Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms.

On earth I dream;—I die to be:

Time, shake not thy bald head at me.

I challenge thee to hurry past

Or for my turn to fly too fast.

Think me not numbed or halt with age,

Or cares that earth to earth engage,

Caught with love's cord of twisted beams,

Or mired by climate's gross extremes.

I tire of shams, I rush to be:

I pass with yonder comet free,—

Pass with the comet into space

Which mocks thy æons to embrace;

Æons which tardily unfold

Realm beyond realm,—extent untold;

No early morn, no evening late,—

Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate,

Whose shining sons, too great for fame,

Never heard thy weary name;

Nor lives the tragic bard to say

How drear the part I held in one,

How lame the other limped away.