The Mountain Cemetery

    With their harsh leaves old rhododendrons fill

    The crevices² in grave plots' broken stones.

    The bees renew the blossoms they destroy，

    While in the burning air the pines rise still，

    Commemorating³ long forgotten biers.

    Their roots replace the semblance⁴ of these bones.

    The weight of cool， of imperceptible dust

    That came from nothing and to nothing came

    Is light within the earth and on the air.

    The change that so renews itself is just.

    The enormous， sundry⁵ platitude⁶ of death

    Is for these bones， bees， trees， and leaves the same.

    And splayed upon the ground and through the trees

    The mountains' shadow fills and cools the air，

    Smoothing the shape of headstones to the earth.

    The rhododendrons suffer with the bees

    Whose struggles loose ripe petals⁷ to the earth，

    The heaviest burden it shall ever bear.

    Our hard earned knowledge fits us for such sleep.

    Although the spring must come， it passes too

    To form the burden suffered for what comes.

    Whatever we would give our souls to keep

    Is merely part of what we call the soul；

    What we of time would threaten to undo⁸

    All time in its slow scrutiny⁹ has done.

    For on the grass that starts about the feet

    The body's shadow turns， to shape in time，

    Soon grown preponderant with creeping shade，

    The final shadow that is turn of earth；

    And what seems won paid for as in defeat.