Ralph Waldo Emerson The Past, post-1855(?) details (?) 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 reënter 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. early #works: https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-second-series/the-poet/ archive: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/ #poem: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAD1982.0001.001/1:6.35?rgn=div2;view=fulltext (p. 258) #poetry