Teach Me

Teach me, old World, your passion of slow change,

    Your calm of stars, watching the turn of earth,

Patient of man, and never thinking strange

    The mad red crash of each new system’s birth.

Teach me, for I would know your beauty’s way

    That waits and changes with each changing sun,

No dawn so fair but promises a day

    Of other perfectness than men have won.

Teach me, old World, not as vain men have taught,

    —Unpatient song, nor words of hollow brass,

Nor men’s dismay whose powerfullest thought

    Is woe that they and worlds alike must pass.

Nothing I learn by any mortal rule;

Teach me, old World, I would not be man’s fool.