IV

On the hill summit Where the gusty wind all night long has assailed me, Now I see stars vanishing Before the long cold clutching fingers of dawn.

Stars scintillant, fire-hued, metallic, Topaz fruit of the deep-blue garden: Southward you go, my constellations, And leave me with the white day, alone.

Over the hilltop Swish with a scurry of wings Millions of pale brown birds, Songless, pulsing southward.

Birds who have filled the trees, And who fled long ago at my passing, Now you clatter in heedless tumult, Fanning with your hot wings my face.

Carry this word to the southward; Say that I have forgotten them that wait for me, All the loves and the hates need expect me no longer, In the autumn at last I am alone.

Suddenly The wind crashes through the tree-tops, Stripping away their orange-tiled domes; Stark blue skeletons, forbidding

Gesticulate in my face. You whom I planted and lavished With all the wealth and beauty I had to bestow Hurry away, vain harvest,

The winds’ scythes can reap you, Where you lie on the earth, and to death's barns you can go. Beyond the hilltop I have seen only the sky.

The wind, naked, prodding up black-furred clouds, Cossacks of winter. Cry, wind, Shriek to the shivering southland,

That I am going into winter, That I do not hope to return. Farewell, crowded stars, Farewell, birds, winds, clouds and tree-tops,

I, weary of you all, seek my destined joy in the north-land, Amid blue ice and the rose-purple night of the pole.