I Will Sing You One-O

 It was long I lay
 Awake that night
 Wishing that night
 Would name the hour
 And tell me whether
 To call it day
 (Though not yet light)
 And give up sleep.
 The snow fell deep
 With the hiss of spray;
 Two winds would meet,
 One down one street,
 One down another,
 And fight in a smother
 Of dust and feather.
 I could not say,
 But feared the cold
 Had checked the pace
 Of the tower clock
 By tying together
 Its hands of gold
 Before its face.

 Then came one knock!
 A note unruffled
 Of earthly weather,
 Though strange and muffled.
 The tower said, "One!'
 And then a steeple.
 They spoke to themselves
 And such few people
 As winds might rouse
 From sleeping warm
 (But not unhouse).
 They left the storm
 That struck en masse
 My window glass
 Like a beaded fur.
 In that grave One
 They spoke of the sun
 And moon and stars,
 Saturn and Mars
 And Jupiter.
 Still more unfettered,
 They left the named
 And spoke of the lettered,
 The sigmas and taus
 Of constellations.
 They filled their throats
 With the furthest bodies
 To which man sends his
 Speculation,

 Beyond which God is;
 The cosmic motes
 Of yawning lenses.
 Their solemn peals
 Were not their own:
 They spoke for the clock
 With whose vast wheels
 Theirs interlock.
 In that grave word
 Uttered alone
 The utmost star
 Trembled and stirred,
 Though set so far
 Its whirling frenzies
 Appear like standing
 in one self station.
 It has not ranged,
 And save for the wonder
 Of once expanding
 To be a nova,
 It has not changed
 To the eye of man
 On planets over
 Around and under
 It in creation
 Since man began
 To drag down man
 And nation nation.