University of Virginia Library


208

I AM NOT CAREFUL

I am not careful whether I retain
The suffrage and the praise the crowd bestow:
My eyes are set beyond earth's valley and plain,
On meads of pure delight they cannot know.
Art is my mistress, and her hands of snow
Shall crown me; if I aught deserve of crowning:
Shall lift me far above these regions low.
Oh, never may the present judge me, drowning
The judgments that from lips of poets flow!
My song is written for lovers, and for skies
And seas and stars and glad suns as they rise;
To cheer the feet that through the future go.
Oh, heedless am I of the present time—
I look from its mere vales towards mounts sublime.