A COMMONPLACE DAY

The day is turning ghost,

And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,

To join the anonymous host

Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,

To one of like degree.

I part the fire-gnawed logs,

Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends

Upon the shining dogs;

Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends,

And beamless black impends.

Nothing of tiniest worth

Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or praise,

Since the pale corpse-like birth

Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays -

Dullest of dull-hued Days!

Wanly upon the panes

The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and yet

Here, while Day's presence wanes,

And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,

He wakens my regret.

Regret — though nothing dear

That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,

Or bloomed elsewhere than here,

To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,

Or mark him out in Time...

— Yet, maybe, in some soul,

In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,

Or some intent upstole

Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows

The world's amendment flows;

But which, benumbed at birth

By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be

Embodied on the earth;

And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity

May wake regret in me.