Classic Poem

Much learning is but living in the past,
Deserted cobwebs in the wrinkled brow.
Wherefore lament the want of it who hast
The ever-living Now?

They close their doors on us, those learned brains;
No entrance ours, without the rusty keys
Ours are the streets, the mountains, and the plains,
The cloud, the sky, the breeze.

Better yield up the past, and free soul give
Unto the inflow of the passing hour,
And, like the lilies in their glory, live
Our day of sun and shower.

O God, how feeble is our sense of Thee!
The lily trusts Thee, and the lowly beast.
Why beg a crust not ours, when life might be
An ever-ready feast?

Give up the past! We cannot, and be men.
Beasts have the present — circumscribed and small:
But the immortals take within their ken
Past, present, future — all.