Classic Poem

This menace:—of remembrance that must come
This menace:—of the waking that must be.
O soul, let the rhythm of life itself grow dumb
And be the song of death our litany:
Let the world perish as a perishing fire,
For us be less than ashes without flame,
So that we twain our last breath here suspire,
Here where none uttereth word, none calleth name.
For in the Hollow Land is utter peace,
The magic spell which hath no first or last,
But all that never ceaseth here doth cease
And what would know no death is long since past:
Only one thing endures where all expire
The inviolate rapture of fulfilled desire.