Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/308

 

And I beheld that land of mystery
Where lay the paradise of earth, where flowed
The spring of youth, concealed within the grass
Amid a thousand others, whence I drank
From many, and, 'tis very like, from youth:
And therefore all endured I with acclaim,
And therefore all, as in a mirror, I
Perceive within my soul, and now portray it.
The world is changed of aspect: I shall die
Like others, but my heritage remains:
The lust for seeing all and learning all,
To ransack all for the delight of man;
Legion shall be my sons: they shall proceed
Farther than I, but scarcely shall see more,
For earth sheds wonders as a snake its skin.

Old age I know, with many dreams and secrets,
And that suffices me. And they who come
After me, let them take, as it may chance,
Of what remains to them, as best they can,
As I did. I sit foremost at the feast
Of distant journeys, and it likes me well.
All prospers me, and I fare well with all.
To make all life a vigil over books,
To rack one's brain 'mid piles of yellow parchments,
Seeking the truth of writing and of thought,
Is much, in sooth; to live an age in camps
'Mid roll of drums and trumpets in assaults,
O'er ramparts in a rain of missiles, in