The Past

The debt is paid,

The verdict said,

The Furies laid,

The plague is stayed,

All fortunes made;

Turn the key and bolt the door,

Sweet is death forevermore.

Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,

Nor murdering hate, can enter in.

All is now secure and fast;

Not the gods can shake the Past;

Flies-to the adamantine

Bolted down forevermore.

None can reenter there, -No thief so politic,

No Satan with a royal

Steal in by window, chink or hole,

To bind or unbind, add what

Insert a leaf, or forge a name,

New-face or finish what is packed,

Alter or mend eternal Fact.