WHEN by God’s mercy you have got to bed,
Received the blanket’s blessing on the bone,
With the soft pillow underneath your head,
And the heart-cold that you cannot disown
Abates a little, and a little more,
And you drift off like down of soft black thistle
Into nothing at all, is it not sore
In that kind place to hear a far-off whistle
Like a slow rocket rise and arc and break
Into a shower of mournful stars that fall
On you, and shivering you jerk awake
And catch the echo of the fading call,
And mutter (knowing that it was a train)
“Morning will come. I must get up again.”