I long not now, a little while at least, For that serene interminable hour When I shall leave this barmecidal feast, With poppy for my everlasting flower. I long not now for that dim cubicle Of earth to which my lease will not expire, Where he who comes a tenant there may dwell Without a thought of famine, flood, or fire. Surely that house has quiet to bestow: Still tongue, spent pulse, heart pumped of its last throb, The fingers tense and tranquil in a row, The throat unwelled with any sigh or sob. But time to live, to love, bear pain and smile, Oh, we are given such a little while! YET DO I MARVEL I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did he stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited with the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand; Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing! TO LOVERS OF EARTH: FAIR WARNING Give over to high things the fervent thought You waste on Earth; let down the righteous bar Against a wayward peace too dearly bought Upon this pale and passion-frozen star. Sweethearts and friends, are they not loyal? Far More fickle, false, perverse, far more unkind, Is Earth to those who give her heart and mind. And you whose lusty youth her snares intrigue, Who glory in her seas, swear by her clouds, With Age, man’s foe, Earth ever is in league. Time resurrects her even while he crowds Your bloom to dust, and lengthens out your shrouds A day’s length or a year’s. She will be young When your last cracked and quivering note is sung. She will remain the Earth, sufficient still Though you are gone, and with you that rare loss That vanishes with your bewildered will; And there shall flame no red, indignant cross For you, no quick white scar of wrath emboss The sky, no blood drip from a wounded moon, And not a single star chime out of tune. FROM THE DARK TOWER We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made eternally to weep. The night whose sable breast relieves the stark White stars is no less lovely, being dark; And there are buds that cannot bloom at all In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds. TO JOHN KEATS, POET, AT SPRINGTIME