Perhaps in chasms of the wasted past, That planet wandered within hail of ours, And plucked men's souls to loveliness and cast The old, that was, away, like husks of flowers; And made them stand erect and bade them build Nobler than hovels plaited in the mire, Gave them an altar and a god to gild, Bridled the brooks for them and fettered fire; And, in another coming, forged the steel Which, on life's scarlet wax, forever set Longing for beauty bitten as a seal That blood not clogs nor centuries forget, That built Atlantis, and, in time will raise That grander thing whose image haunts our days. For, like an outcast from the city, I Wander the desert strewn with traveller's bones, Having no comrade but the starry sky Where the tuned planets ride their floating thrones. I pass old ruins where the kings caroused In cups long shards from vines long since decayed, I tread the broken brick where queens were housed In beauty's time ere beauty was betrayed; And in the ceaseless pitting of the sand On monolith and pyle, I see the dawn, Making those skeletons of beauty grand By fire that comes as darkness is withdrawn; And in that fire the art of men to come Shines with such glow I bless my martyrdom. Death lies in wait for you, you wild thing in the wood, Shy-footed beauty dear, half-seen, half-understood, Glimpsed in the beech wood dim, and in the dropping fir, Shy like a fawn and sweet and beauty's minister. Glimpsed as in flying clouds by night the little moon, A wonder, a delight, a paleness passing soon. Only a moment held, only an hour seen, Only an instant known in all that life has been, One instant in the sand to drink that gush of grace The beauty of your way, the marvel of your face. Death lies in wait for you, but few short hours he gives, I perish even as you by whom all spirit lives, Come to me, spirit, come, and fill my hour of breath With hours of life in life that pay no toll to death. What are we given, what do we take away? Five little senses, startling with delight, That dull to death and perish into clay And pass from human memory as from sight. So the new penny glittering from the mint, Bears the king's head awhile, but Time effaces The head, the date, the seated queen, the print Even as a brook the stone in pebbly places. We bear the stamp, are current, and are prized, Hoarded or spent, the while the mintage passes, Then, like light money, challenged or despised, We join the heap of dross which Time amasses, Erased, uncurrent discs no more to range The clanging counters in the great exchange.