The Last Quarter of the Moon
How long shall I tarnish the mirror of life,A spatter of rust on its polished steel!The seasons reelLike a goaded wheel.Half-numb, half-maddened, my days are strife.
The night is sliding towards the dawn,And upturned hills crouch at autumn’s knees.A torn moon fleesThrough the hemlock trees,The hours have gnawed it to feed their spawn.
Pursuing and jeering the misshapen thingA rabble of clouds flares out of the east.Like dogs unleashedAfter a beast,They stream on the sky, an outflung string.
A desolate wind, through the unpeopled dark,Shakes the bushes and whistles through empty nests,And the fierce unrestsI keep as guestsCrowd my brain with corpses, pallid and stark.
Leave me in peace, O Spectres, who hauntMy labouring mind, I have fought and failed.I have not quailed,I was all unmailedAnd naked I strove, ’tis my only vaunt.
The moon drops into the silver dayAs waking out of her swoon she comes.I hear the drumsOf millenniumsBeating the mornings I still must stay.
The years I must watch go in and out,While I build with water, and dig in air,And the trumpets blareHollow despair,The shuddering trumpets of utter rout.
An atom tossed in a chaos madeOf yeasting worlds, which bubble and foam.Whence have I come?What would be home?I hear no answer. I am afraid!
I crave to be lost like a wind-blown flame.Pushed into nothingness by a breath,And quench in a wreathOf engulfing deathThis fight for a God, or this devil’s game.