Life and Existence

I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges— Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

For frantic boast and foolish word— Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!

I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it.

They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam.

We have done with Hope and Honor, we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung; And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

If I were damned of body and soul, I know whose prayers would make me whole, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine.

And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.”

At my dying hour, and over my long life, A clock strikes somewhere at the city’s edge.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!

Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.

It is found again. What? Eternity. It is the sea Gone with the sun. 11

O seasons, O châteaux, What soul is without flaws? 12

O seasons, O châteaux, What soul is without flaws? 12

I long for Europe of the ancient parapets. 8

I wish to leave the world By its natural door; In my tomb of green leaves They are to carry me to die. Do not put me in the dark To die like a traitor; I am good, and like a good thing I will die with my face to the sun.

The untented Kosmos my abode, I pass, a willful stranger; My mistress still the open road And the bright eyes of danger.

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

My body which my dungeon is, And yet my parks and palaces.