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 | The poems of Madison Cawein |  |
I
In the silence of his room. After many days:
All, all are shadows. All must pass
As writing in the sand or sea:
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.
As writing in the sand or sea:
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.
The days that mold us—what are they?
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.
102
Linked through the ages, one and all,
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.
Within us still the monstrous shape
That shrieked in air and howled in slime,
What are we?—partly man and ape—
The tools of fate, the toys of time!
That shrieked in air and howled in slime,
What are we?—partly man and ape—
The tools of fate, the toys of time!
| The poems of Madison Cawein | |