Must we sing the round ecliptic?
Must we suppose a star immortal -
Must we trace these patterns of us - up there -
While we, down here, know death?

What a noble self-loathing -
To presume upon the unthinking night
Our disdain for cloud, to swell
In our own black vision when a new moon
Unmasks oblivion, when a new moon
Denies a shadowed path.

Stars must die in their time,
Must crush upon themselves
As we wither and lust eternal.
But what can never pass,
Like a low and clever fog,
Is the mute unknowing
Bestowed upon a log.