The Sentry
I have begun to die.
For now at last I know
That there is no escape
From Night. Not any dream
Nor breathless images of sleep
Touch my bat’s-eyes. I hang
Leathery-arid from the hidden roof
Of Night, and sleeplessly
I watch within sleeps province.
I have left
The lovely bodies of the boy and girl
Deep in each other’s placid arms;
And I have left
The beautiful lanes of sleep
That barefoot lovers follow to this last
Cold shore of thought I guard.
I have begun to die
And the guns’ implacable silence
Is my black intеrim, my youth and age,
In the flower of fury, thе folded poppy,
Night.