Classic Poem

Do you think
Death is an answer then?
Ah, to the How, the When,
Ah, to the hardest word.

But — have you heard
That other endless asking? Have you seen
The stale ironic question lean
At evening from a window-place
To face
The coming in of night, or stand
Where the sea breaks upon the broken land
Hour by hour listening?

Have you not seen
Old bones lie motionless between
The olives on the Tuscan hill
And still
Unanswered — still?
And do you think
Death is an answer? Do you think the Ask
O ask no more O ask
Nothing, the hand upon the mouth, the mask
With broken eyes — that thus
Death answers us?