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!