Yvor Winters

DEATH goes before me on his hands and knees,

And we go down among the bending trees.

Weeping I go, and no man gives me ease—

I am that strange thing that each strange eye sees;

Eyes of the silence, and all life an eye,

Turn in the wind; and always I walk by.

Too still I go, and all things go from me

As down far autumn beaches a man runs to the sea.

My hands are cold, my lips are thin and dumb.

Stillness is like the beating of a drum.