This is the ice that in the end shall claim The patient earth—this the unbreathing night That gathers from the poles to starve the flame Of blood and flower. Here in my pitying sight Moves a quenched universe, as now might move Within the eye of God a perished star; And I observe the orbit in the groove, The law that leads an empty shape too far. The living have no claim; we are a call, A puzzle to beset his lowered head. But there are those he knew—and they are all. His loyalties have shifted to the dead. Why should we come with voices shrill and fresh To plumb abstraction that includes the flesh? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BEARS AT RASPBERRY TIME by HAYDEN CARRUTH UNTITLED, 1968; FOR MARK ROTHKO by JAMES GALVIN QUI S'EXCUSE S'ACCUSE by MARIANNE MOORE LAUS INFANTIUM by WILLIAM CANTON THE MINSTREL BOY by THOMAS MOORE THE DREAMER by SHAEMAS O'SHEEL LONDON, 1802 (1) by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |