73 (a beasts bony frame)
A BEAST'S BONY frame lies bleaching on the grass.
Its dry white bonesTime's hard laughtercry to me:
Thy end, proud man, is one with the end of the cattle that graze no more,
for when thy life's wine is spilt to its last drop
the cup is flung away in final unconcern.
I cry in answer:
Mine is not merely the life that pays its bed and board
with its bankrupt bones, and is made destitute.
Never can my mortal days contain to the full
all that I have thought and felt, gained and given,
listened to and uttered.
Often has my mind crossed Time's border,
Is it to stop at last for ever at the boundary of crumbling bones?
Flesh and blood can never be the measure of the truth that is myself;
the days and moments cannot wear it out with their passing kicks;
the wayside bandit, Dust, dares not rob it of all its possessions.
Death, I refuse to accept from thee
that I am nothing but a gigantic jest of God,
a blank annihilation built with all the wealth of the Infinite.