The Soul of Time
A Poem by Trumbull Stickney
TIME’S a circumference
Whereof the segment of our station seems
A long straight line from nothing into naught.
Therefore we say “ progress, “ “ infinity “ —
Dull words whose object
Hangs in the air of error and delights
Our boyish minds ahunt for butterflies.
For aspiration studies not the sky
But looks for stars; the victories of faith
Are soldiered none the less with certainties,
And all the multitudinous armies decked
With banners blown ahead and flute before
March not to the desert or th’ Elysian fields,
But in the track of some discovery,
The grip and cognizance of something true,
Which won resolves a better distribution
Between the dreaming mind and real truth.
I cannot understand you.
‘T is because
You lean over my meaning’s edge and feel
A dizziness of the things I have not said.
