Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

The sun into the graves
Of the dead Past sinks down below the waves.
Thou, too, o sun,
As we or any other of Fate's slaves,
Thy fixed and foreappointed course must run
Nor hope for rest until thy Titan task be done.

One day, triumphant star,
Thou yet shalt cease to fill thy flaming car;
Thy fiery face
Grown pale and old, in fragments burst, afar
Strewn shalt thou be upon the fields of Space,
And some new sun arise belike to fill thy place.

Yet shalt thou have, at least,
Sleep following due on the funereal feast
And (Time's behest
Grown void for thee,) no longer shalt from East
Thy daily round of drudgery run to West,
But sleep, in darkness drowned and unremembering rest.

But we, alas! but we,
Whose brain it was that bore the world and thee,
For us, no sleep,
No cease from being is. The Will-To-be
Still drives us on from life to life, like sheep;
Still, though worlds wane, our thought the weapon-watch must keep.

Still, though suns wax and wane,
Of the creator in our restless brain
Born and reborn,
Done by our thought to death and raised again,
We 'neath the burden of the worlds forlorn
Must toil nor ever sleep the sleep that knows no morn.