Classic Poem

XXXI

An image dance of change
Throngs my dim-sighted flesh,
To music's air-built mesh
Move thoughts for ever strange.
I am so woven of sense
And subtlety uncharted
That I must vanish hence
Blind-souled and twilight-hearted.

Soon death the hooded lover
Shall touch my house of clay,
And life-lit eyes discover
That in the warbling grey
I have been early waking,
And while the dawn was breaking
Have stolen afield to find
That secrecy which quivers
Beyond the skies and rivers
And cities of the mind.

Till then, my thought shall strive
That living I may not lose
The wonder of being alive,
Nor time's least gift refuse.

For, though the end be night,
This wonder and this white
Astonishment of sight
Make hours of magic shine;
And heaven's a blaze and bloom
Of transience and divine
Inheritance of doom.