Comes now the slow, unstayable release From day, -- the impalpable inflow of night; The truth of stars no longer hid by light; The induction into the undreamable abyss. Comes now the exalted hour wherein to drink With grateful laughter a toast to life's defeat: The earth-stripped hour of spirit, humble-sweet, -- Human residuum at the eternal brink. Comes now the hour when men in silence feel The awful puissance of the Cosmic Wheel: The statured Ego shrunken to the dust Before the imminent, unknowable MUST; But this for comfort: inevitable death Should, softly, as the dusk comes, close the breath. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTERRACIAL by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON SONNET: 106 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE FOUR THINGS [TO DO] by HENRY VAN DYKE EPITAPH; INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT ERECTED BY GENTLEMAN FOR HIS LADY by JAMES BEATTIE THE GREY MONK by WILLIAM BLAKE |