Man

The feathers in a fan

Are not so frail as man;

The green embossed leaf

Than man is no more brief.

His life is not so loud

As the passing of a cloud;

His death is quieter

Than harebells, when they stir.

The years that have no form

And substance are as warm,

And space has hardly less

Supreme an emptiness,

And yet man being frail

Does on himself prevail,

And with a single thought

Can bring the world to naught.

As being brief he still

Bends to his fleeting will

All time, and makes of it

The shadow of his wit.

Soundless in life and death

Although he vanisheth,

The echo of a song

Makes all the stars a gong.

Cold, void, and yet the grim

Darkness is hot with him,

And space is but the span

Of the long love of man.