Then came one knock! A note unruffled Of earthly weather, Though strange and muffled. The tower said, “One!” And then a steeple. They spoke to themselves And such few people As winds might rouse From sleeping warm (But not unhouse). They left the storm That struck _en masse_ My window glass Like a beaded fur. In that grave One They spoke of the sun And moon and stars, Saturn and Mars And Jupiter. Still more unfettered, They left the named And spoke of the lettered, The sigmas and taus Of constellations. They filled their throats With the furthest bodies To which man sends his Speculation, Beyond which God is; The cosmic motes Of yawning lenses. Their solemn peals Were not their own: They spoke for the clock With whose vast wheels Theirs interlock. In that grave word Uttered alone The utmost star Trembled and stirred, Though set so far Its whirling frenzies Appear like standing In one self station. It has not ranged, And save for the wonder Of once expanding To be a nova, It has not changed To the eye of man On planets over Around and under It in creation Since man began To drag down man And nation nation. FRAGMENTARY BLUE Why make so much of fragmentary blue In here and there a bird, or butterfly, Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)— Though some savants make earth include the sky; And blue so far above us comes so high, It only gives our wish for blue a whet. FIRE AND ICE Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. IN A DISUSED GRAVEYARD The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But never any more the dead. The verses in it say and say: “The ones who living come today To read the stones and go away Tomorrow dead will come to stay.” So sure of death the marbles rhyme, Yet can’t help marking all the time How no one dead will seem to come. What is it men are shrinking from? It would be easy to be clever And tell the stones: Men hate to die And have stopped dying now forever. I think they would believe the lie. DUST OF SNOW The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued. TO E. T.