Finis (Smith)

It seemed that from the west The live red flame of sunset, Eating the dead blue sky And cold insensate peaks, Was loosened slowly, and fell. Above it a few red stars Burned down like low candle-flames Into the gaunt black sockets Of the chill insensible mountains. But in the ascendant skies (Cloudless, like some vast corpse Unfeatured, cerementless) Succeeded nor star nor planet. It may have been that black, Pulseless, dead stars arose And crossed as of old the heavens. But came no living orb, Nor comet seeming the ghost, Homeless, of an outcast world Seeking its former place That is no more nor shall be In all the cosmos again. Null, blank and meaningless As a burnt scroll that blackens With the passing of the fire, Lay the dead infinite skies. Lo ! in the halls of Time, I thought, the torches are out— The triumph of the gods Or funereal pomp of demons For which their flames were lit Over and quiet at last With the closing peace of night, Whose dumb impassible skies Enfold the living world As the sea a sinking pebble.