Classic Poem

Inertia

O, fair these studded fields of clover,
Where yellow butterflies make love,
And the sun, like any arrant lover,
Broods over cobwebs last night spun;
Where the light, and the breeze, and the heat are at one,
And merrily sail the clouds above;
And every leaf and blade in the sun,
And the lusty red blossoms, gleam happily.

Animus

Beyond these fields and far away,
The hills are fair in their garb of grey.

Inertia.

Why wouldst thou travel, O heart of my life?
Here is happiness close beside thee;
Yonder, the hills are big with strife;
Chill and dearth in the hills may betide thee
Yea, and the veil may hide such a fate,
The clefts in the mountains may be so deep,
The pines so high and the crags so great,
For this life behind may'st thou learn to weep; —
Life in the valley here with me,
Full of soft security
The future is great and the Sphinx is fair,
But she sits and looks out over a waste,
High enshrined in some dreary spot;
And many a gruesome sight is there,
And the cries of dead men move her not.

Animus

I would strive onward — on and on,
Though the future were death to look upon;
Though the fate were the blackest that could befall
Are there no pleasures a soul may taste
But the pleasures, here, of a beast in the stall,
While it waits and hopes for the next wind-fall?
In the future is all the joy of speed!
And this is enough; should I find my rede,
— The scroll of my life that shall tell me all —
And drop ere unfurling it, — good is my fall.