FINITUDE

One ruby, amid a diamond spray of stars,

The coast light flashes;

The tide plashes,

Across a mile of bay-sweet land the moon

Comes soon:

She has lost half of her lustre and looks old.

A cricket, finitude's incarnate cry,

And the infinite waters with their hushless sigh

Are the two sounds

The night has:

Each in eternal wistfulness abounds.

I have wakened out of my sleep because I too

Am wistful,

Tristeful;

Because I know that half of me is gone,

And that all frailty cries in the cricket's tone.

I have wakened out of my sleep to watch and listen.

For what?

To see for a moment universes glisten;

To wonder and want — and go to sleep again,

And die,

And be forgot.