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 re-enter there,-
No thief so politic, 
No Satan woth 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 finic=sh what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.

R. W. Emerson