And cried, ‘Where art thou, Night?

Come forth, thou Worm; appear,

That I may slay thee quite.’

And the Night answered, ‘Here.’

And the Sun said, ‘My might

Is next to His, Most High;

Canst thou destroy me, Night?’

And the Night answered, ‘Aye.’

II

This moonÈd Desert round,

Those deeps before me spread,

I sought for Hope, and found

Him beautiful, but dead.

In this resounding Waste

I sought for Hope, and cried,

‘Where art thou, Hope?’—Aghast,

I found that he had died.

I cried for Hope. The Briars

Pointed the way he’d gone;

Cold were the Heav’nly Fires,

Colder the numb-lipped Moon.

‘Where art thou, Hope?’—‘I go,

Returning,’ he had said;

I found him white as snow

And beautiful, but dead.

He would return, he said.

When that I heeded not,

Lo, he had fallen dead.

Dead; Hope is dead; is not.

I tear my hands with briars,

My face in earth I thrust;

I curse the heav’nly fires,

I drink the desert dust.

A threat of thunder fills

Us. Lo, a voice! The waves

A breathless horror stills;

The sand, a sea of graves.

Methought the mocking Moon

Open’d her yellow lips

And spake. The Planets swoon

In vapoury eclipse.

‘Fool, all the world is dust;

Even I who shine on thee.

There perish and add thy dust

To that sepulchral sea.’

III

In exile here I trod

And with presumptuous breath

Call’d out aloud for God:

The Answer came from Death.

O World, thy quest is cold;

O World, who answereth?

Distracted thou hast call’d;

The Answer came from Death.

I call’d for God and heard

No voice but that of Death:

Then came the bitter word,

‘Fool, God himself is Death.

Great Death; not little death

That nips the flowers unfurl’d

And stays the infant’s breath;

But Death that slays the world.

And in despair I ran,

And stumbled at the marge,

And saw from span to span

Death’s ocean rolling large;

And only the breadth accursed

Of billows barring hope,

That thunder’d, ‘Death,’ and burst

In tears upon the slope.

Nor in the Heavens hope.

The Sun drew in and shrank

His flashes from the cope,

And answer’d, ‘Death,’ and sank.

I sought the sacred Night

And solace of the Stars,

For surely in their light

No shade of Death appears.

Like tears their Answer came,

Dropt one by one from heaven;

Their Answer was the same;

No other word was given.

IV

But then the Silence said,

‘Resolve thy visioning mind:

Is action for the dead

Or seeing in the blind?

Cry not with fruitless breath.

Is it not understood,

If God had utter’d Death

Then also Death is good?

Abandon Wrath and Ruth.

Touch not the High, nor ask.

For God alone the Truth.

Perform thy daily task.’