By Degrees We Find We’re All Departing

By degrees we find we're all departing For the same serene and silent land. And perhaps when soon that course I'm charting Some possessions I will have to hand. Sweetest silver birches' straggling covert! Mother earth's horizon's sandy plain! Hosts departing face me in mid-hover - I don't have the strength to hide my pain. In this world I fear I've too much cherished All that turns the spirit into flesh. Peaceful aspens, leafy tendrils stretching, Gazed upon the sky through branches' mesh. In the stillness of my contemplation, Many songs about myself I've spun, In this sullen world of desolation Found in life and breathing joy's begun. Women's kisses have been inspirations - Crushing flowers on the grassy spread - Demons, like young brothers' altercations, Never made me batter any head. Thickets there, I know they do not flower, Swan-necked lazy rye it doesn't shake. Thus I find this host's departing power Causes me to shudder and to quake. Certainly, in that host's destination Fields of corn in mist they do not glow. Those I love they therefore find their station Here with me on planet earth below.