Deaths And Entrances

On almost the incendiary eve

 Of several near deaths,

When one at the great least of your best loved

 And always known must leave

Lions and fires of his flying breath,

 Of your immortal friends

Who'd raise the organs of the counted dust

 To shoot and sing your praise,

One who called deepest down shall hold his peace

 That cannot sink or cease

 Endlessly to his wound

In many married London's estranging grief.

On almost the incendiary eve

 When at your lips and keys,

Locking, unlocking, the murdered strangers weave,

 One who is most unknown,

Your polestar neighbour, sun of another street,

 Will dive up to his tears.

He'll bathe his raining blood in the male sea

 Who strode for your own dead

And wind his globe out of your water thread

 And load the throats of shells

 with every cry since light

Flashed first across his thunderclapping eyes.

On almost the incendiary eve

 Of deaths and entrances,

When near and strange wounded on London's waves

 Have sought your single grave,

One enemy, of many, who knows well

 Your heart is luminous

In the watched dark, quivering through locks and caves,

 Will pull the thunderbolts

To shut the sun, plunge, mount your darkened keys

 And sear just riders back,

 Until that one loved least

Looms the last Samson of your zodiac.