A grave is all too weak a thing To hold my fancy long; I’ll bear a blossom with the spring, Or be a blackbird’s song, I think that I shall fade with ease, Melt into earth like snow, Be food for hungry, growing trees, Or help the lilies blow. And if my love should lonely walk, Quite of my nearness fain, I may come back to her, and talk In liquid words of rain. _Harsh World That Lashest Me_ (_For Walter White_) Harsh World that lashest me each day, Dub me not cowardly because I seem to find no sudden way To throttle you or clip your claws. No force compels me to the wound Whereof my body bears the scar; Although my feet are on the ground, Doubt not my eyes are on a star. You cannot keep me captive, World, Entrammeled, chained, spit on, and spurned. More free than all your flags unfurled, I give my body to be burned. I mount my cross because I will, I drink the hemlock which you give For wine which you withhold--and still, Because I will not die, I live. I live because an ember in Me smoulders to regain its fire, Because what is and what has been Not yet have conquered my desire. I live to prove the groping clod Is surely more than simple dust; I live to see the breath of God Beatify the carnal crust. But when I will, World, I can go, Though triple bronze should wall me round, Slip past your guard as swift as snow, Translated without pain or sound. Within myself is lodged the key To that vast room of couches laid For those too proud to live and see Their dreams of light eclipsed in shade. _Requiescam_ _I am for sleeping and forgetting All that has gone before; I am for lying still and letting Who will beat at my door; I would my life’s cold sun were setting To rise for me no more._ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. An incorrect page number in the Table of Contents has been corrected.