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AT THE END OF THE WORLD
25
AT THE END OF THE WORLD

THE patient earth, the breathless trees,
    Have listened here for centuries.
Have listened under the silver moon
  To this little streamlet's flowing.
Hearing nothing in its going
    Save its own enchanted tune.

Oh, how silent on moss and stone
    Sleeps the whole world's bitter wrong!
While the shadow of love, lying alone.
    Listens to the streamlet's song.

At the end of the world this place might be!
    So hushed are the shadows, so hushed the grass;
So hushed are the hemlocks of mystery,
    Waiting for feet that never pass!

Listen! A voice out of the night!
    A voice from the silence — a passionate cry —
Beautiful, terrible, infinite!
    The voice of a god who comes to die.

And the patient earth and the breathless trees
    Turn to that voice; and the listening air
Yearns to it, thro' the immensities.
    As tho' God Himself were dying there.