To William Nash.
I.
Visions, to sear with flame his worn and haunted eyes,
Throng him: and fears unknown invest the black night hours.
His royal reason fights with undefeated Powers,
Armies of mad desires, legions of wanton lies;
His ears are full of pain, because of their fierce cries:
Nor from his tended thoughts, for all their fruits and flowers,
Comes solace: for Philosophy within her bowers
Falls faint, and sick to death. Therefore Lucretius dies.
Dead! And his deathless death hath him, so still and stark!
No change upon the deep, no change upon the earth,
None in the wastes of nature, the starred wilderness.
Wandering flames and thunders of the shaken dark:
Among the mountain heights, winds wild with stormy mirth:
These were before, and these will be: no more, no less.
1890.