Original typescript of Change and Snowfall by Raymond Knister.
This poem is the epigraph on Raymond Knister's gravestone.
Change
I shall not wonder more, then,
But I shall know.
Leaves change, and birds, flowers,
And after years are still the same.
The sea's breast heaves in sighs to the moon,
But they are moon and sea forever.
As in other times the trees stand tense and lonely,
And spread a hollow moan of other times.
You will be you yourself,
I'll find you more, not else,
For vintage of the woeful years.
The sea breathes, or broods, or loudens,
Is bright or is mist and the end of the world;
And the sea is constant to change.
I shall not wonder more, then,
But I shall know.
11 January 1921
(After Exile, page 19)
Part of Seven Poems, published in The Midland: A Magazine of the Middle West in 1922. (Volume 8, Issue 12)