The Shell

Living grows round us like a skin
To shut away the outer desolation
For if we clearly mark the furthest deep
We should be dead long years before the grave.
But turning around within the homely shell
Of worry, discontent, and narrow joy
We grow and flourish
And rarely see the outside dark
That would confound our eyes.

Some break the shell.

I think that there are those
Who push their fingers through
The brittle walls
And make a hole.
And through this cruel slit
Stare out across the cinders of the world
With naked eyes.
They look both out and in
Knowing themselves
And too much else besides.

Molly Drake

And if he die, he for an hour has been
Alive, aware of what it is to be.
The high majestic hills he has looked upon,
And meadows golden green.
The stars in all their glory he has seen.
This poor dust that is he
Has stirred with pulse of inward liberty,
And touched the extremes of hope and all between.
Can the small pain of deathbed,
Can the sting of parting from the accustomed haunts of earth
Cancel out his grateful wondering
That he has known exultance and the worth
Of being himself a song the dark powers sing?

Arthur Davison Ficke

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass.
And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one - turn down an empty Glass.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Time doth flit,
Oh shit.

Dorothy Parker

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