FINITUDE
Reading edition
I
One ruby, amid a diamond spray of stars, The coast light flashes; The tide plashes, Across a mile of bay-sweet land the moon Comes soon: She has lost half of her lustre and looks old. A cricket, finitude's incarnate cry, And the infinite waters with their hushless sigh Are the two sounds The night has: Each in eternal wistfulness abounds.
II
I have wakened out of my sleep because I too Am wistful, Tristeful; Because I know that half of me is gone, And that all frailty cries in the cricket's tone. I have wakened out of my sleep to watch and listen. For what? To see for a moment universes glisten; To wonder and want—and go to sleep again, And die, And be forgot.