Zál for a while remained absorbed in thought,
Then shook his plumage, spread his wings, and answered:—
“First as to those twelve cypresses which rear
Themselves, with thirty boughs upon each tree:
They are the twelve new moons of every year,
Like new-made monarchs, throned in majesty.
Upon the thirtieth day its course is done
For each; thus our revolving periods run.
Thou speakest of two chargers, black and white,
Which like Ázargashasp go flashing by:
These too are periods, and in their flight
Pursue each other unremittingly.
The two that pass along are night and day,
The pulses of the sky are reckoned so;
They never catch each other as they go,
But follow as a hound pursueth prey.

Again, thou askest of the thirty men
That ride before their king in order meet,
And seem to thee as twenty-nine, but when
Thou countest them their number is complete.
They are the phases of the moon; one night
A phase from time to time eludeth sight.
Unsheathe we now the hidden sense expressed
By two tall cypresses, a bird and nest.
The darker limb of heaven is opposed
With Aries to Libra in the height;
Thence till the reign of Pisces hath been closed
The ascendant limb is that of gloom and night.
Each lofty cypress-tree denoteth one
Of these two limbs which cause our smiles and tears,
The bird which flieth 'twixt them is the sun—
Occasion to the world of hopes and fears.* Again, the city built upon the mount
Is our long home, the scene of our account.
This Wayside Inn is meant by Thornbrake town,
At once our pleasure, treasure, pain and woe:
It reckoneth each breath drawn here below
And both exalteth us and casteth down.
A storm ariseth, earth's foundations quake,
Extorting from the world a bitter cry;
We leave our toils behind us in the brake
And seek the city that is built on high.
Where we have toiled another hath the gain,
But not for ever: he will not remain.
'Twas always so; to look for change is vain.
If our provision be an honoured name
Our souls will be on that account held dear,
But if we do the deeds of greed and shame
That will, when we have breathed our last, appear.
Albeit we have raised to Saturn here
Our mansion we shall have a shroud instead,
No more. The dust and bricks close o'er our head
And all is consternation, awe, and fear.
As for the meadow-land, and him whose keen
Scythe is a terror both to green and dry,
Who cutteth all alike, both dry and green,
And if thou criest heareth not thy cry—
Time is the mower; we are like the swath;
The grandsire and the grandson are the same
To him, not making young or old his aim,
But chasing each that cometh in his path.
The use and process of the world are so:
No mother's son is born unless for death.
By this door we arrive, by that we go,
And time meanwhile accounteth every breath.”