Speak softly, Sir. If they heard you,
they might think it was the final blast,
when all former moments will reappear
on the threshold of the last.
The shrieking will give way to a greater standstill
in which nothing’s heard.
All things will return home to their Thing
and all words return to the Word.
Are you not frightened by this wheeling of days,
this progress toward that end?
Can you not find among us one
who will swim against the way things tend?
Who will reanimate sense and desire,
bowing himself on all strings?
Who will, out of love, regard the Thing,
while from it withholding its things?
Oh, stem the great turning over which
the powerful waters cascade.
At the expense, perhaps, of what you are,
halt the flow of what you made.