Life and Existence

The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn.

Kings are like stars—they rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king. 2

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; A traveler from the cradle to the grave Through the dim light of this immortal day.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; A traveler from the cradle to the grave Through the dim light of this immortal day.

Death is the veil which those who live call life: They sleep, and it is lifted. 1

From the dust of creeds outworn.

Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality!

Peace is in the grave. The grave hides all things beautiful and good: I am a God and cannot find it there.

I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me.

The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, Met his own image walking in the garden, That apparition, sole of men, he saw.

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep—that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.

The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us—visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower.

My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!