Poetry

Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?

Stretch a bow to the very full,
And you will wish you had stopped in time;
Temper a sword-edge to its very sharpest,
And you will find it soon grows dull.
When bronze and jade fill your hall.

You ask me why I live in the grey hills.
I smile but do not answer, for my thoughts are elsewhere.
Like peach petals carried by the stream, they have gone
To other climates, to countries other than the world of men.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
Forming a ring, perhaps or joining hands

And who by fire, who by water,
who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?

A black crow
Has settled himself
On a leafless tree,
Fall of an autumn day.

At midnight
Under the bright moon,
A secret worm
Digs into a chestnut.

On a snowy morning,

But these manoeuvrings to avoid
The touching of hands,
These shifts to keep the eyes employed
On objects more or less neutral
(As honour, for the time being, commands)
Will hardly prevent their downfall.