Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, br they have had what they wanted, br No hard gifts; the unhappy br Linger a space, but pain is a thing that is glad to be forgotten; br but one who has given br His heart to a cause or a country, br His ghost may spaniel it a while, disconsolate to watch it. I was br wondering how long the spirit br That sheds this verse will remain br When the nostrils are nipped, when the brain rots in its vault br or bubbles in the violence of fire br To be ash in metal. I was thinking br Some stalks of the wood whose roots I married to the earth of br this place will stand five centuries; br I held the roots in my hand, br The stems of the trees between two fingers: how many remote br generations of women br Will drink joy from men's loins, br And dragged from between the thighs of what mothers will br giggle at my ghost when it curses the axemen, br Gray impotent voice on the sea-wind, br When the last trunk falls? The women's abundance will have br built roofs over all this foreland; br Will have buried the rock foundations br I laid here: the women's exuberance will canker and fail in its br time and like clouds the houses br Unframe, the granite of the prime br Stand from the heaps: come storm and wash clean: the plaster br is all run to the sea and the steel br All rusted; the foreland resumes br The form we loved when we saw it. Though one at the end of br the age and far off from this place br Should meet my presence in a poem, br The ghost would not care but be here, long sunset shadow in the br seams of the granite, and forgotten br The flesh, a spirit for the stone.