Classic Poem

I

One ruby, amid a diamond spray of stars,
The coast-light flashes;
The tide plashes,
Across a mile of bay-sweet land the moon
Comes soon:
She has lost half of her lustre and looks old.
A cricket, finitude's incarnate cry,
And the infinite waters with their hushless sigh
Are the two sounds
The night has:
Each in eternal wistfulness abounds.

II

I have wakened out of my sleep because I too
Am wistful,
Tristful;
Because I know that half of me is gone,
And that all frailty cries in the cricket's tone.
I have wakened out of my sleep to watch and listen.
For what?
To see for a moment universes glisten:
To wonder and want — and go to sleep again,
And die,
And be forgot.