Unripe Falling

He felt the fever
Like a halo
Burn the pillow
Back of his head.
In his palms
The fever fluttered
Like two caught birds
Not quite dead;
And he thought for a fleeting
Fleeting minute
Of all that he still had
Left to be done,
And he wondered how you should
Make ready
When you know you must soon step
Out of the sun.
He thought of Christ
With firm high forehead,
And firm strange lips,
And the hair's brown sheen;
He thought of Christ
With glance intensive,
Eyes' unwinking
Aquamarine.
He remembered the ancient
Consolation -

That now he was knowing
It can't be true.
He remembered the sweet words
Bitterly, going:
"I go to prepare
A place for you."
Then taking the last
Of his anxious breathing,
He turned away wrapped
In the fever's flame,
Never again -
Whoever voiced it -
To answer the speaking
Of his name.
With regret for his youth
His friends went by him,
His sisters stayed
Upstairs to weep.
But the old man said, as if to music,
"Oh how good it is
To sleep!"
The old man told himself again:
"He
Giveth His
Beloved
Sleep."

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