Last Words - James Merrill


My life, your light green eyes

Have lit on me with joy.

There's nothing I don't know

Or shall not know again,

Over and over again.

It's noon, it's dawn, it's night,

I am the dog that dies

In the deep street of Troy

Tomorrow, long ago--

Part of me dims with pain,

Becomes the stinging flies,

The bent head of the boy.

Part looks into your light

And lives to tell you so. 1