page 39

The Small Hours

Dying, dying,
the small, keen, shrivelled moon high up there in the west;
long, level cloud-banks lying low over the mountains,
dark earth steeped deep in rest.

Dying, dying,
the world to my heart, my heart to the known world;
intellectual light belying the say of roving senses,
foreseeing their sails close-furled.

Old ardours decadent;
dreams flying ghostly to dim caves whence they came.
How congruous midnight silence with interior stillness
sustaining a slow-dying flame!

Dying, dying,
condemned to go down to the abyss with every beast,
darkness prevailing… nay! even now daunted, paling;
dawn, night-denying, hail to you, hail to you in the east!