To be eternal--what a
brilliant
thought!
American Poetry - 1922 - A Miscellany
Still,
I fear that I will die as I have lived,
A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars,
A pagan killed by weltschmerz . . . I remember,
Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,
I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars? " He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament. "
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die? "
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since you spent
One lifetime and refrained from poisoning
Your testy grandmother! " . . . How much of him
Remains in me--even when I am caught
In dreams of death and immortality.
To be eternal--what a brilliant thought!
It must have been conceived and coddled first
By some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg,
His slippers warm, his children amply nursed,
Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand,
His nightcap on his head, one summer night
Sat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grand
If all of this could last beyond a doubt--
This placid moon, this plump _gemuthlichkeit_;
Pipe, breath and summer never going out--
To vegetate through all eternity . . .
But no such everlastingness for me!
God, if he can, keep me from such a blight.
_Death, it is but the long, cool night,
And Life's a dull and sultry day.
It darkens; I grow sleepy;
I am weary of the light. _
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams
And there a nightingale is loud.
She sings of love, love only . . .
I hear it, even in dreams. _
My Mouche, the other day as I lay here,
Slightly propped up upon this mattress-grave
In which I've been interred these few eight years,
I saw a dog, a little pampered slave,
Running about and barking. I would have given
Heaven could I have been that dog; to thrive
Like him, so senseless--and so much alive!
I fear that I will die as I have lived,
A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars,
A pagan killed by weltschmerz . . . I remember,
Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,
I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars? " He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament. "
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die? "
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since you spent
One lifetime and refrained from poisoning
Your testy grandmother! " . . . How much of him
Remains in me--even when I am caught
In dreams of death and immortality.
To be eternal--what a brilliant thought!
It must have been conceived and coddled first
By some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg,
His slippers warm, his children amply nursed,
Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand,
His nightcap on his head, one summer night
Sat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grand
If all of this could last beyond a doubt--
This placid moon, this plump _gemuthlichkeit_;
Pipe, breath and summer never going out--
To vegetate through all eternity . . .
But no such everlastingness for me!
God, if he can, keep me from such a blight.
_Death, it is but the long, cool night,
And Life's a dull and sultry day.
It darkens; I grow sleepy;
I am weary of the light. _
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams
And there a nightingale is loud.
She sings of love, love only . . .
I hear it, even in dreams. _
My Mouche, the other day as I lay here,
Slightly propped up upon this mattress-grave
In which I've been interred these few eight years,
I saw a dog, a little pampered slave,
Running about and barking. I would have given
Heaven could I have been that dog; to thrive
Like him, so senseless--and so much alive!
