MORTAL DEADLINE

I cannot live long. As it was long ago and as my mother said. I may be a simple-minded, impatient one, burning himself from two candle-burners, diligently and still on the burner. No one would have thought of the immortal geometric gulas of pyramids when they were made, that they could easily survive the diligent changes of generations. Thanks to millennia of universally expandable experimentation and the unmistakable solid permanence of professional knowledge. 

Even I may be here, and in my body a hitherto unknown disease is daily breeding; it would not be pleasant to complain. On my head I tear my remaining grass-hair like a desperate Prometheus with endless match-lighting, yet with a meek will. I have secretly planted around me the hidden telepathies of unattainable loves: there may yet be some one to comfort the child in me, to protect me, to care for me! 

I could have been one deceptive, strange and strange hope for my blessed parents. Let me not yet, lying on my sickbed, be left to pine for how, in what way, I could pity my deedless self. Nor need I yet in the womb of the afternoon, To be sooner lured by wandering sleep, By hesitating angelic fever-quivering. I ought to live now, and I should be free. No haughty lesser kings, no haughty demigods, can usurp from me the right that my testimony may not be corrupted, - but may stand. For though I am far from dreams that can be realized, Eternities do not take leave, but in the luminous order of my soul they flame with me unceasingly! And when my nerves, at last broken, are at last settled, May there remain One Someone to care for the products of my inventive, flaming spirit!