The Last Frontier

Having passed over the world,
And seen three seas and two mountains,
He came to the last frontier

On a hilltop
There were two men making a hole in the earth,
And beside it, his own dead body lay.

The thin man tugged at his beard
And wondered if the grave was deep enough,
The fat man sweated and toiled
And longed for a glass of beer.

Meanwhile his body lay there,
In a shabby sut, on its bead of wet earth;
And the clouds of evening, blown from beyond the world,
Swung lightly over his face.

But he waited until
His old body was dropped and the earth shovelled deeply upon it,
And the lean man put up a cross,
While the fat man stumped away home.

Then he went back from the last frontier
To the countries he had known years ago;
To the seven hotels and the thirty-two deserts
Without hope.

-John Gould Fletcher