Nos Immortales

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun,

Into the free companionship of air;

Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done,

All's one to me — I do not greatly care;

So long as there are brown hills — and a tree

Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth —

And I can lie and hear eternally

The vast monotonous breathing of the earth.

I have known hours, slow and golden-glowing,

Lovely with laughter and suffused with light,

O Lord, in such a time appoint my going,

When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white,

And the spark dies within the feeble brain,

Spilling its star-dust back to dust again.