Look Thy Last On All Things Lovely,

What A Haunting, Inescapable Riddle Life Was.

Hi! Handsome Hunting Man Fire Your Little Gun. Bang! Now The Animal Is Dead And Dumb And Done. Nevermore To Peep Again, Creep Again, Leap Again, Eat Or Sleep Or Drink Again. Oh, What Fun!

When Music Sounds, Gone Is The Earth I Know, And All Her Lovelier Things Even Lovelier Grow; Her Flowers In Vision Flame, Her Forest Trees Lift Burdened Branches, Stilled With Ecstasies. When Music Sounds, Out Of The Water Rise Naiads Whose Beauty Dims My Waking Eyes, Rapt In Strange Dream Burns Each Enchanted Face, With Solemn Echoing Stirs Their Dwelling-place. When Music Sounds, All That I Was I Am Ere To This Haunt Of Brooding Dust I Came; And From Time's Woods Break Into Distant Song The Swift-winged Hours, As I Hasten Along.

After All, What Is Every Man? A Horde Of Ghosts - Like A Chinese Nest Of Boxes - Oaks That Were Acorns That Were Oaks. Death Lies Behind Us, Not In Front - In Our Ancestors, Back And Back Until.

His Brow Is Seamed With Line And Scar; His Cheek Is Red And Dark As Wine; The Fires As Of A Northern Star Beneath His Cap Of Sable Shine. His Right Hand, Bared Of Leathern Glove, Hangs Open Like An Iron Gin, You Stoop To See His Pulses Move, To Hear The Blood Sweep Out And In. He Looks Some King, So Solitary In Earnest Thought He Seems To Stand, As If Across A Lonely Sea He Gazed Impatient Of The Land. Out Of The Noisy Centuries The Foolish And The Fearful Fade; Yet Burn Unquenched These Warrior Eyes, Time Hath Not Dimmed, Nor Death Dismayed.