Night

The night is old, and all the world

Is wearied out with strife;

A long gray mist lies heavy and wan

Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled

By the low, shrunken moon;

Her spirit draws her down and down -

She shall be buried soon.

There is a sound that is no sound,

Yet fine it falls and clear,

The whisper of the spinning earth

To the tranced atmosphere.

An odour lives where once was air,

A strange, unearthly scent,

From the burning of the four great stars

Within the firmament.

The universe, deathless and old,

Breathes, yet is void of breath:

As still as death that seems to move

And yet is still as death.