The Star-Treader and Other Poems

Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,

Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun—

Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spun

Beneath the roof of Night, and torn or furled

By Night at will? All opposite powers upwhirled

Are less than chaff to this imperious one—

As wind-tossed chaff, until its sport be done,

Scattered, and lifted up, and downward hurled.

All gyres are held within the path unspanned

Of Night's aeonian compass—loosely pent

As with the embrace of lethal-tightening weight;

All suns are grasped within the hollow hand

Of Night, the godhead sole, omnipotent,

Whose other names are Nemesis and Fate.