PEER
I’m not hard to content; I don’t aim so high;—
but I won’t be deprived of one doit of my Self.
Have me judged by the law in the old-fashioned way!
For a certain time place me with Him of the Hoof;—
say a hundred years, come the worst to the worst;
that, now, is a thing that one surely can bear;
for they say the torment is only moral,
so it can’t after all be so pyramidal.
It is, as ’tis written, a mere transition;
and as the fox said: One waits; there comes
an hour of deliverance; one lives in seclusion,
and hopes in the meantime for happier days.—
But this other notion — to have to be merged,
like a mote, in the carcass of some outsider,—
this casting-ladle business, this Gynt-cessation,—
it stirs up my innermost soul in revolt!