Classic Poem

Here's about sunshine and the sun
As long as the old fear goes on
Of being taken for a braggart,
Rather than for one just so strong
Able to lift up just so much
Of that loose burden called earth—
Which, as it lifts whole, is lifted
Out of time's unmeaning peril
But, as it scatters and is lost,
Becomes the devil's senseless pack. . . .

Here's about curling of the tongue,
Crossed fingers and no present object
While others perhaps still live
To mock your natural arm
And make it drop down of the shame
Of seeming magical. . . .

Here's about love, which mimics time
When the clock has stopped in the night
And the church bell seems out of order
Or the wind blowing the wrong way.
Here's about time and love, Poor Friend—
Enough be it that love is long,
And no grace lost in putting off
Till the last moment what were hell to try
Till the last moment, and even then
A so much lesser heaven than heaven
By that just so strong arm of yours.
And how does the moon come in?
The moon's for death, and to remind
That loss of will hangs overhead—
Unless, before death's death only,
A ghost cries out, ‘Once I was man,
And man I mean to be again
Though death a dead man makes me.’

To close, then, here's about a madness.
May it at just so late take hold your arm
And no caution avail against it.
May you be that unlikely one,
Uncertain subject of uncertain chronicle,
Who was to be wise against reason
And break into the lifeless regions
At the running down of strength—
Where there's little more than to know
What's lost by death, and to grieve not,
The heart being in that place accounted
Fool either, or false witness. . . .
Of which, to the same effect,
In my next letter, upon your answer
To the same effect . . . perhaps your next. . . .