V

This is the land of Death; The sun his taper is Wherewith he numbereth The dead bones that are his.

He walks beside the deep And counts the mouldering bones In lands of tumbling steep And cataracts of stones.

About his feet the hosts Of dead leaves he hath slain Awaken, shrieking ghosts Demanding life again.

O silent Sepulchre, Great East, disastrous clime; O grave of things that were; O catacombs of time;

O silent catacombs; O blear’d memorial stones; Where laughing in the tombs Death plays with mouldering bones;

And through dead bones the stalk Of the living herb is thrust; And we, the living, walk In wastes of human dust.

Dust—thou art dust. Thy Sun, Thy lord, and lord of dust, Doth stamp thee into one Great plain of dust; and dust

Thy heav’ns, thy nights, thy days; Thy temples and thy creeds; Thy crumbling palaces; Thy far forgotten deeds,—

Infinite dust. Half living, We clothe ourselves in dust And live, not to be living, But because we must.

Thy winds are full of death; Death comes we know not whence; Thy forests have a breath Of secret pestilence;

Thy rivers rolling large Are blest with no sweet green, But silent at the marge The waiting monsters seen.

No scented silence, eve, But night a noisy gloom; And we thy captives live, The derelicts of doom.

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