My life is made of five long nights
And five swift days, like birds whose flights
Have taken them to where the earth
Below them, is a small, strange thing
Of very little worth.
My life is made of five bright days
And five kind nights. I heard you praise
My beauty, in your faint, hushed tone
That no one else has ever heard.
And this is all I own.
Five nights and five strange days, and then
You died to save your fellow-men.
I never lived until I saw
Within your eyes that thirst and awe.
And I shall never live again.