Ii

O myriad-childed Mother, Sitting among their graves Who thee and one another Have made for ever slaves,

Great East; O aged Mother, Too old for Fear and Hope— Fear that is Pleasure’s brother, And Sorrow’s sister, Hope—

As erst in ages gone, So now, thou art half dead, Thy countenance turned to stone By an eternal dread.

With lips that dare not move And awful lids apart, While yet faint pulses prove The life about thy heart,

Thou sitt’st at dreadful gaze Into the dreadful Vast: For thou canst well appraise The future by the past,

Where thou beholdest Death Confound and desolate, And men like ants beneath The giant feet of Fate.