Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
For this you’ve striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you’ve wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.
There’s a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body’s too ragged
To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul’s in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not too deep.
Credit
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 20, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“Fire and Sleet and Candlelight” was published in Nets to Catch the Wind (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921).
Date Published
01/01/1921