Classic Poem

And yet I find I care! — But I should not
I'm positive of that, if all were what
It looked to poor Don't-Care and Should-I-Worry .
I hurl myself through Time. The man to hurry
Am I and no mistake-why I'm all that
When neighbours cry You'll never run to fat
The way you live! To trap a word I'm up
At cockcrow, with a book I dine and sup,
My record of the Here and Now to fix
I burn each week a hundred midnight wicks,
Or filaments — I drive as dour a pen
As the first navigators or great mission-men.
All Time is new! You can't take that away
From even the most motheaten drab Today.
We are given a Ball to play with, and I play!
Never quite charted on account of t
As mathematics has it. I feel free —
Presented at sunrise with a novel view
(The Continent of Time being always new )
I find that I permit myself to rise
Betimes lest I should miss some mad surprise!
Am I not Time's man! For who else such zeal
Can show for all that chronologic " real" —
That strange America of mere " events" —
Dishwater-governments and new pup-tents
For bold " explorers": Dollar-Diplomats:
Of morpho butterflies, ten-gallon hats?
Have I not marcopoloed up and down
The universe of this " expanding" town,
Bursting with sodden nonsense? Am I not still
Tracking an unmapped landfall with my quill?
Yet who can suppose that all this wild expense
Of costly spirit, of rare commonsense,
Is a mere effect of fashionable itch
To please King Kronos or his latest bitch!