Immortality
When I was grass, perhaps I may have wept
As every year the grass-blades paled and slept;
Or shrieked in anguish impotent, beneath
The smooth impartial cropping of great teeth—
I don’t remember much what came to pass
When I was grass.
When I was monkey, I’m afraid the trees
Weren’t always havens of contented ease;
Things killed us, and we never could tell why;
No doubt we blamed the earth or sea or sky—
I have forgotten my rebellion’s shape
When I was ape.
Now I have reached the comfortable skin
This stage of living is enveloped in,
And hold the spirit of my mighty race
Self-conscious prisoner under one white face,—
I’m awfully afraid I’m going to die,
Now I am I.
So I have planned a hypothetic life
To pay me somehow for my toil and strife.
Blessed or damned, I someway must contrive
That I eternally be kept alive!
In this an endless, boundless bliss I see,—
Eternal me!
When I was man, no doubt I used to care
About the little things that happened there,
And fret to see the years keep going by,
And nations, families, and persons die.
I didn’t much appreciate life’s plan
When I was man.