Classic Poem

So that, should death press
Hard green coins to keep my lids
Down, yet this old restlessness
Would not quiet as he bids,
Would not grow any less.

Too much of the stubborn breath
And the wing-beat of the world
Would stay till the claw of death
Relaxed and on his red eye furled
Spectrally the blue-white sheath.

I who never could be still
Would push through a seam of rock;
Tons of stone and what you will
Could not hold me under, block
Any heart so volatile.

I would drop a hemlock root
In a pocket or some rough
Fissure alien to the foot;
I would break through soon enough,
Nourished on a flinty fruit.

They who thought me flat and stark
Would suspect in every vine
Me, my accent, and the dark
Laughter that was wholly mine
Lifting to confront the lark.

They will tremble—and they should;
They'll have grim accounts to square:
This bone swift and unsubdued,
This black and rebellious hair—
They shall make these matters good!