The Man Against the Sky: A Book of Poems

Fragment

     Faint white pillars that seem to fade
     As you look from here are the first one sees
     Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade
     Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees.
     Now many a man, given woods like these,
     And a house like that, and the Briony gold,
     Would have said, "There are still some gods to please,
     And houses are built without hands, we're told."

     There are the pillars, and all gone gray.
     Briony's hair went white.  You may see
     Where the garden was if you come this way.
     That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;
     "Sooner or later they strike," said he,
     And he never got that from the books he read.
     Others are flourishing, worse than he,
     But he knew too much for the life he led.

     And who knows all knows everything
     That a patient ghost at last retrieves;
     There's more to be known of his harvesting
     When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves;
     And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves
     For Briony now in this ageless oak,
     Driving the first of its withered leaves
     Over the stones where the fountain broke.