THE STONE

THE STONE

           I.

The sun goes down

Too soon, too soon.

Little comfort comes from the feeble moon.

Vast images of the Zodiac

Labor dimly overhead

Grinding flesh and spirit

Until all those images are dead.

But here the cold serenity

Of angels encompasses me.

On this long-traveled night

I welcome their solemn divinity

On this night of final prayer

When I lay myself down

To conjoin this bickering flesh

With this ghost-strewn,

This devouring ground.          

Ecstasy, I abjure you!

Ambition I deny you!

Weary of fury I lay me down,

O angels, I pray you, devour me wholly:

Heart, limbs, entrails, brains, and bones!

Reform me into the enduring earth;

Its silts, its sands its crumbled stones

That I may, for a half moment of eternity,

Be the least part of that imperturbable,

Oblivious fecundity.

        Break axis and axle, Beast!

                    Stone, drop away!