A SIGN
Haply on strange roads I shall be, the moorland's
peace around me;
Or counting up a fortune to which Destiny hath
bound me;
Or—Vanity of Vanities—the honey of the Fair;
Or a greybeard, lost to memory, on the cobbles in
my chair—
How shall I know that the end of things is coming?
The drummers will be drumming; the fiddlers at
their thrumming;
Nuns at their beads; the mummers at their mumming;
Heaven's solemn Seraph stoopt weary o'er his summing;
The palsied fingers plucking, the way-worn feet numbling—
And the end of things coming.
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