Explore "The Village Atheist" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ye young debaters over the doctrine / Of the soul's immortality, / I who lie here was the village atheist, / Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments / Of the infidels.
But through a long sickness / Coughing myself to death / I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition / And desire which the Shadow, / Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness, / Could not extinguish.
Listen to me, ye who live in the senses / And think through the senses only:
Immortality is not a gift, / Immortality is an achievement;
And only those who strive mightily / Shall possess it.