The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.

The thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers' meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up.