Keats A-Dying
Often of that Last Hour I lie and think;
I see thee, Keats, nearing the Deathway dim—
See Severn in his noiseless hurry, him
Who leaned above thee fading on the brink.
. . . . . . .
What is that wild light through the window chink?
Is it the burning feet of cherubim?
Or is it the white moon on western rim—
Saint Agnes’ moon beginning now to sink?
How did Death come—with sounds of water-stir?
With forms of beauty breaking at the lips?
With field pipes and the scent of blowing fir?
Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse,
Sweeping the world away like gossamer,
Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the ships?
Man
Out of the deep and endless universe
There came a greater Mystery, a Shape,
A Something sad, inscrutable, august—
One to confront the worlds and question them.
The Cricket
The twilight is the morning of his day,
While sleep drops seaward from the fading shore,
With purpling sail and dip of silver oar,
He cheers the shadowed time with roun-delay,
Until the dark east softens into gray.
Now as the noisy hours are coming—hark!
His song dies gently—it is growing dark—
His night, with its one star, is on its way!
Faintly the light breaks o’er the blowing oats—
Sleep, little brother, sleep: I am astir,
We worship Song, and servants are of her—
I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time;
Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes,
And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme.
In High Sierras
There at a certain hour of the deep night,
A gray cliff with a demon face comes up,
Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks, and with
An anxious look peers at the Zodiac.