Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper
 Of dancing leaflets whirled
From all the woods that autumn
 Bereaves in all the world.

And midst the fluttering legion
 Of all that ever died
I follow, and before us
 Goes the delightful guide,

With lips that brim with laughter
 But never once respond,
And feet that fly on feathers,
 And serpent-circled wand.

XLIII

THE IMMORTAL PART

When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
“Another night, another day.”

“When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?”

“This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,-”

“These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour: 
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul.”

" ’Tis long till eve and morn are gone: 
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth.”

“Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest? 
’Tis that every mother’s son
Travails with a skeleton.”

“Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.”

“Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o’ the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child.”

“Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
-Another night, another day.” 
So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.

XLIV

Shot? so quick, so clean an ending? 
 Oh that was right, lad, that was brave: 
Yours was not an ill for mending,
 ’Twas best to take it to the grave.

Oh you had forethought, you could reason,
 And saw your road and where it led,
And early wise and brave in season
 Put the pistol to your head.

Oh soon, and better so than later
 After long disgrace and scorn,
You shot dead the household traitor,
 The soul that should not have been born.

Right you guessed the rising morrow
 And scorned to tread the mire you must: 
Dust’s your wages, son of sorrow,
 But men may come to worse than dust.