| |
| WHEN I meet the morning beam, | |
| Or lay me down at night to dream, | |
| I hear my bones within me say, | |
| ‘Another night, another day. | |
| |
| ‘When shall this slough of sense be cast, | 5 |
| This dust of thoughts be laid at last, | |
| The man of flesh and soul be slain | |
| And the man of bone remain? | |
| |
| ‘This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout, | |
| These thews that hustle us about, | 10 |
| This brain that fills the skull with schemes, | |
| And its humming hive of dreams,— | |
| |
| ‘These to-day are proud in power | |
| And lord it in their little hour: | |
| The immortal bones obey control | 15 |
| Of dying flesh and dying soul. | |
| |
| ‘’Tis long till eve and morn are gone: | |
| Slow the endless night comes on, | |
| And late to fulness grows the birth | |
| That shall last as long as earth. | 20 |
| |
| ‘Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, | |
| Know you why you cannot rest? | |
| ’Tis that every mother’s son | |
| Travails with a skeleton. | |
| |
| ‘Lie down in the bed of dust; | 25 |
| Bear the fruit that bear you must; | |
| Bring the eternal seed to light, | |
| And morn is all the same as night. | |
| |
| ‘Rest you so from trouble sore, | |
| Fear the heat o’ the sun no more, | 30 |
| Nor the snowing winter wild, | |
| Now you labour not with child. | |
| |
| ‘Empty vessel, garment cast, | |
| We that wore you long shall last. | |
| —Another night, another day.’ | 35 |
| So my bones within me say. | |
| |
| Therefore they shall do my will | |
| To-day while I am master still, | |
| And flesh and soul, now both are strong, | |
| Shall hale the sullen slaves along, | 40 |
| |
| Before this fire of sense decay, | |
| This smoke of thought blow clean away, | |
| And leave with ancient night alone | |
| The stedfast and enduring bone. | |
| |
