The Old Chimaeras, Old Receipts

THE old Chimaeras, old receipts

For making “happy land,”

The old political beliefs

Swam close before my hand.

The grand old communistic myths

In a middle state of grace,

Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell,

And walking for a space,

Quite dead, and looking it, and yet

All eagerness to show

The Social–Contract forgeries

By Chatterton — Rousseau —

A hundred such as these I tried,

And hundreds after that,

I fitted Social Theories

As one would fit a hat!

Full many a marsh-fire lured me on,

I reached at many a star,

I reached and grasped them and behold —

The stump of a cigar!

All through the sultry sweltering day

The sweat ran down my brow,

The still plains heard my distant strokes

That have been silenced now.

This way and that, now up, now down,

I hailed full many a blow.

Alas! beneath my weary arm

The thicket seemed to grow.

I take the lesson, wipe my brow

And throw my axe aside,

And, sorely wearied, I go home

In the tranquil eventide.

And soon the rising moon, that lights

The eve of my defeat,

Shall see me sitting as of yore

By my old master’s feet.