The Winged Beetle

THE CAMP FIRE 155 I sate and shivered : so this pregnant breath Must be delivered at the door of Death ! Poor petty torch to which our spirits flutter Our wings to scorch ! Ah, shall no angel utter Some word to allay the universal doom ? All swept away into a dusty tomb ! My friend ! who dreamt that dream of Permanence ? Are we exempt from any common sense Was not my fire warm while it burned ? Am I No living lyre because my songs must die ? Is not Becoming Being’s twin ? Be mute ! Is Death’s low drumming louder than Life’s lute ? Was I the ass, that fed my body on That crackling grass, long after midnight gone ; Or thou, that shivered all night long for fear The sun delivered no dawn upon the meer ? More, canst thou tell what god may watch thy beacon, Feed it from hell or heaven, ere it weaken, From some anointed sceptre, fiery dew For this appointed, that my soul win through ? Nay ! all we know not anything. Yet raise, Though we must throw our hearts to feed its blaze, The aspiring flame, the passionate glow, the bloom Whose root is shame, whose fruit the trackless tomb. I wail “ I know not,” louder and livelier Who laugh, and go not, shaveling sinister !