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Home  »  The Poets of Transcendentalism  »  Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887)

George Willis Cooke, comp. The Poets of Transcendentalism: An Anthology. 1903.

The Future

Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887)

WHAT may we take into the vast Forever?

That marble door

Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,

No fame-wreathed crown we wore,

No garnered lore.

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?

No gold, no gains

Of all our toiling: in the life immortal

No hoarded wealth remains,

No gilds, nor stains.

Naked from out that far abyss behind us

We entered here:

No word came with our coming, to remind us

What wondrous world was near,

No hope, no fear.

Into the silent, starless Night before us,

Naked we glide:

No hand has mapped the constellations o’er us,

No comrade at our side,

No chart, no guide.

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow,

Our footsteps fare:

The beckoning of a Father’s hand we follow—

His love alone is there,

No curse, no care.