Hallowes. O noblest hour in my ignoble life! Hunger and squalor, and delirious rhymes; No past, no future; one unending now Of meanest misery, most miserable When fairest dreams gilded the starless night, And words in choirs flew singing through my brain Melodious thunder, for then most I knew The yawning wants and gnawing cares of life. To sink to that inanity abhorred, The wretch whose early fervour, burnt away, Leaves him, for lack of ease to smite his thought To white-heat--since the brazier of youth, That needs no sweat, is cold--incapable Of any meaning, but with loathsome itch That still essays, and still produces nought, Or horribly emits untempered scraps-- Toads, cinders, snakes, nameless aborted things,-- The hideous castings witchcraft vomited; Maybe to live on grudging charity Of friends estranged; sneered at by smug success; Called poetaster: such had been my life; But I have chosen death. Death--and the moon Hangs low and broad upon the eastern verge Above a mist that floods the orient, Filling the deep ravines and shallow vales, Lake-like and wan, embossed with crested isles Of pine and birch. Death--and the drops of day Still stain the west a faintest tinge of rose The stars cannot o'erwash with innocence. Death--and the mountain-tops, peak after peak, Lie close and dark beneath Orion's sword. Death--and the houses nestle at my feet, With ruddy human windows here and there Piercing the velvet shade--deep in the world, Old hedge-rows and sweet by-paths through the corn! The river like a sleepless eye looks up. Pale shafts of smoke ascend from homely hearths, And fade in middle air like happy sighs. Death--and the wind blows chill across my face: The thin, long, hoary grass waves at my side With muffled tinkling.... Not yet! No; my life Has not ebbed all away: I want to live A little while.... Is the moon gone so soon? They've put the shutters to, down there.... The wind Is warm.... Death--is it death? ... I had no chance.... Perhaps I'll have another where I go.... Another chance.... How black!... [Dies. Enter Smith carrying Magdalen.