Cap and Bells

Tonight the stars are yellow sparks

Dashed out from the moon’s hot steel;

And for me, now, no menace lurks

In this darkness crannied by lights; nor do I feel

A trace of the old loneliness here in this crowded train;

While, far below me, each naked light trails a sabre

Of blue steel over the grave great peace of the harbour.

To know this peace is to have outgrown

Thoughts of despair, of some driving crank of fate,

Of corroded tissues in the bleak shell of a town:

Darkness, lights, happiness—all are right,

All bear messages of the hidden heart;

And for me always the grave great peace is stronger

In flaring colours, and a laugh, and a careless singer.

Die in the blood and salt of your thoughts; and die

When the columns of your sun are thrust aside and broken;

But I have chosen the little, obscure way

In the dim, shouting vortex; I have taken

A fool’s power in his cap and bells

And know that in my time the haggard Prince will discover

A blunt shell of Yorick, that laughs for ever and ever.