And now they lie In the same peace around me, and the sky Holds up her stars; now in the rain-drenched wood The tree-toad drinks the rain and finds it good, And trills for joy--the sliding waters grieve Quietly--now the bat begins to weave With intricate motion on the cloudy loom, Of glamourous starlight mingled and gray gloom, His dipping flight among the darkened boughs And dreamy vistas; and the little mouse Furtively hurries through the lane, his eye Turned up in terror as the owl goes by: On softest feathers of silence overhead Flits the dim shadow of the ancient dread, Hooded and vague, the cruelty of his beak Bent on old lustful mysteries.--A squeak-- A scuffle--beating of wings--and in the lane Silence--and the old wrong is done again, That was ere Adam; the triumphant heart And the defeated, each one doomed to his part, They play it through, the old tragedy where one Presence still wars and still is warred upon, Slays and is slain: while fiercely all around Shakes the eternal love-song in shrill sound, Of grasshopper and cricket--sleepless flow The immortal tides of longing to and fro On waves of music; endless is the prayer Of life to the belovèd, everywhere Lifted in adoration: on dark shores Beats the insistent passion that implores The one dear breast of pity or disdain, To be reborn, to be reborn again-- Nor perish wholly! The blind earth is thrilled As with vague rites accomplished, dreams fulfilled, Marriage and mystic union; all along Her brimming meadows rings the bridal song And chaunt ecstatic: that great heart of hers Is touched now the eternal longing stirs From hill to hollow and hollow to clear hill In many voices mingled, or the still Ecstasy of the firefly that trails Among the shadows where the starlight fails, His body’s burning love. Forever flows The dreadful drama to its stately close And endless ending--the fierce carnival Of death and passion, wherein each and all Mix, and are mingled, slaughter, blend, and pass Each into other--the high poem that has No end and no beginning, that the one Self in all living forms beneath the sun, And on all worlds around him and above, Weaves on the strands of hunger, death, and love.