We made all possible preparations,
Drew up a list of firms,
Constantly revised our calculation
And allotted the farms,
Issued all the orders expedient

The Hidden Law does not deny
Our laws of probability,
But takes the atom and the star
And human beings as they are,
And answers nothing when we lie.

Let a florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty’s conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high

Fish in the unruffled lakes
Their swarming colors wear,
Swans in the winter air
A white perfection have,
And the great lion walks

As the poets have mournfully sung,
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling-in-money,
The screamingly-funny,
And those who are very well hung.

We, too, had known golden hours
When body and soul were in tune,
Had danced with our true loves
By the light of a full moon,
And sat with the wise and good

Sir, no man’s enemy, forgiving all
But will his negative inversion, b
Send to us power and light, a sove
Curing the intolerable neural itch
The exhaustion of weaning, the lia

Sharp and silent in the
Clear October lighting
Of a Sunday morning
The great city lies;
And I at a window

Trying to understand the words
Uttered on all sides by birds,
I recognize in what I hear
Noises that betoken fear.
Thought some of them, I’m certain

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse’s flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.
Whispering neighbours, left and ri