Wild Knight and Other Poems — The Triumph of Man

THE TRIUMPH OF MAN

I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes, I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, And slowly pass the dismal grinning days, Monkeying each other like a line of apes.

What care?

There was one hour amid all these When I had stripped off like a tawdry glove My starriest hopes and wants, for very love Of time and desolate eternities.

Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in me Nor any hope of mine did I rejoice, But in a meadow game of girls and boys Some sunset in the centuries to be.