Nos Immortales

Perhaps we go with wind and cloud and sun, Into the free companionship of air; Perhaps with sunsets when the day is done, All's one to me—I do not greatly care; So long as there are brown hills—and a tree Like a mad prophet in a land of dearth— And I can lie and hear eternally The vast monotonous breathing of the earth. I have known hours, slow and golden-glowing, Lovely with laughter and suffused with light, O Lord, in such a time appoint my going, When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white, And the spark dies within the feeble brain, Spilling its star-dust back to dust again.