University of Virginia Library

LXXXIX.

[Boastfully call we all the world our own]

Boastfully call we all the world our own:
What are we who should call it so? The form
Erect, the eye that pierces stars and suns,
Droop and decay; no beast so piteously.
More mutable than wind-worn leaves are we:
Yea, lower are we than the dust's estate;
The very dust is as it was before;
Dissever'd from ourselves, aliens and outcasts
From what our pride dared call inheritance,
We only live to feel our fall and die.