The chance is the remotest Of its going much longer unnoticed That I'm now keeping pace With the headlong human race. And some of them may mind My staying back behind To take life at a walk In philosophic talk; Though as yet they only smile At how slow I do a mile, With tolerant reproach For me as an Old Slow Coach. But I know them what they are: As they get more nuclear And more bigoted in reliance On the gospel of modern science, For them my loitering around At less than the speed of sound Or even the speed of light Won't seem unheretical quite. They may end by banishing me To the penal colony They are thinking of pretty soon Establishing on the moon. With a can of condensed air I could go almost anywhere, Or rather submit to be sent As a noble experiment. They should try one wastrel first On a landscape so accursed To see how long they should wait Before they make it a state. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN HARTZ FOREST by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE CULPRIT FAY by JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE ON CRITICS; IN IMITATION OF ANACREON by MATTHEW PRIOR SONNET: 17 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AN EVENING PRAYER by C. MAUDE BATTERSBY |