The Materialist

MY soul has left its tent of clay

And seeks from star to star,

‘ Mid flaming worlds that are to be,

And fruitful worlds that are,

The Voice which spake and said “Live on!”

( When Death said, “You may die” )

And sent my spirit wandering

The stairway of the sky.

Still must I seek what on the earth

I sought as fruitlessly —

The world I knew, the heaven I scorned

Lost in infinity:

Alone, and on the ageless breath

Of cosmic whirlwinds spun,

I hurtle through the outer dark

Toward some fantastic sun!—

O God! how happy is the leaf,

A sweet and soulless thing,

Dying to live but in the green

Of yet another Spring —

These heights, these depths, these flaming worlds,

This stairway of the sky

I'd give, had no Voice said “Live on!”

When Death said, “You may die.”