The day is turning ghost,

And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,

   To join the anonymous host

Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,

   To one of like degree.

   I part the fire-gnawed logs,

Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends

   Upon the shining dogs;

Further and further from the nooks the twilight’s stride extends,

   And beamless black impends.

   Nothing of tiniest worth

Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or praise,

   Since the pale corpse-like birth

Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays—

   Dullest of dull-hued Days!

   Wanly upon the panes

The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; and yet

   Here, while Day’s presence wanes,

And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,

   He wakens my regret.

   Regret—though nothing dear

That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,

   Or bloomed elsewhere than here,

To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,

   Or mark him out in Time . . .

   —Yet, maybe, in some soul,

In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,

   Or some intent upstole

Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows

   The world’s amendment flows;

   But which, benumbed at birth

By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be

   Embodied on the earth;

And undervoicings of this loss to man’s futurity

   May wake regret in me.