"The Past" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Past
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 door 
Bolted down forevermore. 
None can re-enter there,— 
No thief so politic, 
No Satan with a royal trick 
Steal in by window, chink, or hole, 
To bind or unbind, add what lacked, 
Insert a leaf, or forge a name, 
New-face or finish what is packed, 
Alter or mend eternal Fact. 





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