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It was long I
lay
Awake that night
Wishing that night
Would
name the hour
And tell me whether
To call it day
(Though not yet light)
And give up sleep.
The snow
fell deep
With the hiss of spray;
Two winds would
meet,
One down one street,
One down another,
And fight in a smother
Of dust and feather.
I
could not say,
But feared the cold
Had checked the
pace
Of the tower clock
By tying together
Its
hands of gold
Before its face.
Then cane one
knock!
A note unruffled
Of earthly weather,
Though strange and muffled.
The tower said, "One!'
And then a steeple.
They spoke to themselves
And
such few people
As winds might rouse
From sleeping
warm
(But not unhouse).
They left the storm
That struck en masse
My window glass
Like a beaded
fur.
In that grave One
They spoke of the sun
And moon and stars,
Saturn and Mars
And Jupiter.
Still more unfettered,
They left the named
And
spoke of the lettered,
The sigmas and taus
Of
constellations.
They filled their throats
With the
furthest bodies
To which man sends his
Speculation,
Beyond which God is;
The cosmic motes
Of yawning lenses.
Their solemn peals
Were not
their own:
They spoke for the clock
With whose
vast wheels
Theirs interlock.
In that grave word
Uttered alone
The utmost star
Trembled and
stirred,
Though set so far
Its whirling frenzies
Appear like standing
in one self station.
It has
not ranged,
And save for the wonder
Of once
expanding
To be a nova,
It has not changed
To
the eye of man
On planets over
Around and under
It in creation
Since man began
To drag down man
And nation nation.
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