When the first flicker of year-fall catches
Running up in the trees, burning
The dead year down, the bright leaves turning, turning
Like flames in every once-green-gold clearing,

When the new-prickling wind now fetches
Cardboard creeps and white ghost-faces
From attics, basement boxes, all the dusty web-strung spaces,
And the world’s shadow-time is quickly nearing,

Then rush out, child, into the dark-done street,
The lightless fields, the black expanses,
To join the night parade, the dormer drifts, the dances
Of all the shifting shapes that once were men.

Set out! O let your youthful night-blood beat
With all the creeps and crooks, the haunts and haints,
Till nothing but the prayers of all the dawn-bright saints
Can sing your raging heart to rest again.