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
door
Bolted
down
forevermore.
None
can
reenter
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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson, (born May 25, 1803, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died April 27, 1882, Concord, Massachusetts), American lecturer, poet, and essayist, the leading exponent of New England Transcendentalism. Emerson died on April 27, 1882, in Concord. His beliefs and his idealism were strong influences on the work of his protégé Henry David Thoreau and his contemporary Walt Whitman, as well as numerous others. His writings are considered major documents of 19th-century American literature, religion and thought.