George Sterling

Where got she her sullen mouthAnd where her swaying form?Would she live on eggs and applesWhen the blood of men is warm?(__he Young Witch_)

Within its gates I heard the soundOf winds in cypress caverns caughtOf huddling tress that moaned, and soughtTo whisper what their roots had found.(__ Dream of Fear_)

And fragile is thy tenure of this worldStill haunted by the monstrous ghost of God.("To Science")

A prison becomes a home when you have the key.

A little while, their hunger unfulfilled,The mothlike worlds flit 'round the guttering sun.("Ephemera")

The pathway traced with blood and tears,and dust of all our father's dead,Whose backward footsteps, wandering, red,Fade to the mist of nameless years.(__he Testimony of the Suns_)

O Space and Time and stars at strife,How dreadful your infinity!Shrined by your termless trinity,How strange, how terrible, is life!(__he Testimony of the Suns_)

As a breath on glass, -As witch-fires that burn,The gods and monsters pass,Are dust, and return.(__he Face of the Skies_)

Till her appointed course be run;Till on the darkness faint her breathFlown to the silent void, and DeathSit crowned upon the ashen sun.(__he Testimony of the Suns_)

Be sure that head and heart were laidIn wisdom down, content to die.Be sure he faced the Starless SkyUnduped, unmurmuring, unafraid.(__he Passing of Bierce_)

The candle glimmers but an hour. The nightLooms in its ancient hunger. Would you knowThe tragedy of human love and need?Gaze on the stars, then on a brother's face!

And starward drifts the stricken world,Lone in unalterable gloomDead, with a universe for tomb,Dark, and to vaster darkness whirled.(__he Testimony of the Suns_)

Or sit they girt by laws unknownWhereto the senses serve as bars __ith fire of unrecorded starsThat light a heaven not our own?(__he Testimony of the Suns_)

What silence rules the ghostly hoursThat guard the close of human sleep!(__he Testimony of the Suns_)