Collected poems | ||
575
TO A FRIEND WHO DEPLORED THE BRIEF LIFE OF LITERARY PERSONALITY
It is most true—and most untrue!
Though all should die of Me and You
And all of later men who press
This weary ball, 'tis like, no less,
That our stray thistle-down of thought
Claimed of some winnowing breeze, and brought
To some safe seeding-place, may lie
Securely there, and fructify;
And—in a world still out of joint—
May serve some bard for starting-point
Of some yet larger utterance whence
New bards shall borrow, aeons hence.
Though all should die of Me and You
And all of later men who press
This weary ball, 'tis like, no less,
That our stray thistle-down of thought
Claimed of some winnowing breeze, and brought
To some safe seeding-place, may lie
Securely there, and fructify;
And—in a world still out of joint—
May serve some bard for starting-point
Of some yet larger utterance whence
New bards shall borrow, aeons hence.
What skills it then, though We be done:
Our thought is living—and lives on!
Our thought is living—and lives on!
1907.
Collected poems | ||