Explore "A Song of Travel" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Where's the lamp that Hero lit / Once to call Leander home? / Equal Time hath shovelled it / 'Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome. / Neither wait we any more / That worn sail which Argo bore.
Dust and dust of ashes close / All the Vestal Virgins' care; / And the oldest altar shows / But an older darkness there. / Age-encamped Oblivion / Tenteth every light that shone!
Yet shall we, for Suns that die, / Wall our wanderings from desire? / Or, because the Moon is high. / Scorn to use a nearer fire? / Lest some envious Pharaoh stir, / Make our lives our sepulchre?
Nay! Though Time with petty Fate / Prison us and Emperors, / By our Arts do we create / That which Time himself devours -- / Such machines as well may run / 'Gainst the horses of the Sun.
When we would a new abode, / Space, our tyrant King no more, / Lays the long lance of the road / At our feet and flees before, / Breathless, ere we overwhelm, / To submit a further realm!