Sic Transit
Into evening’s resolute chill
Rises the urchin’s shrill yell,
As up to spangle-star the ball
Curves, suspends, and starts its fall,
Then the hurtling bodies streak
The twilight.
From the hemlock’s peak
The cynic starling bends an eye
Scornful—crassly, utterly.
Now the street lamps, bluish-white,
Bite the dusk with harsh spite;
Cut the smoke of burning leaves
That eddying, slowly rising, weaves
Forms essentially as sound
As these that wrestle on the ground.
Incuriously earth’s shoulder turns,
To hoist rude funeral urns.