THE QUESTION

By Cale Young Rice

I shall lie so one day,

With lips of Silence set;

Eyes that no tear can wet

Again: a thing of Clay.

I shall lie so, and Earth

Will seize again her dust —

Though she must gnaw and rust

The coffin's iron girth.

I shall lie so — and they

Who still the Day bestride,

Will stand so by my side

And with sad yearning say:

“What is he now, this man,

Shut in a pallor there,

His spirit that could dare,

What — what now is its span?

“A withered atom's space

Within a withered brain?

Or can it from the Wain

To far Orion race?”

And, like all that have died,

I shall but answer — naught.

Yet Time this truth has taught:

The Question — will abide.