I once beheld the end of time!
   Its stream had ceased to be.
The drifting years, all soiled with crime,
   Lay in a filthy sea.

The prospect o’er the reeking waste
   Was plain from where I stood.
From shore to shore the wreckage faced
   The surface of the flood.

There all that men were wont to prize
   When time was flowing on,
Seemed here to sink and there to rise
   In formless ruin blown.

In slimy undulations roiled
   The glory of the brave;
The scholar’s fame, the rich man’s gold,
   Alike were on the wave.

There government, a monstrous form
   (The sea groaned ’neath the load),
A helpless mass blown by the storm,
   On grimy billows rode.

The bodies of great syndicates
   And corporations, trusts,
Proud combinations, and e’en states,
   All beasts of savage lusts,

With all the monsters ever bred
   In civilization’s womb,
Lay scattered, floating, dead,
   Throughout that liquid tomb.

It was the reign of general death,
   Wide as the sweep of eye,
Save two vile ghosts that still drew breath
   Because they could not die.

Ambition climbed above the waves
   From wreck to wreck he strove.
And as they sank to watery waves,
   He on to glory rode.

And there was Greed—immortal Greed—
   Just from the shores of time.
Of all hell’s hosts he took the lead,
   A monarch of the slime.

He neither sank below nor rose
   Above the brewing flood;
But swam full length, down to his nose,
   And steered where’er he would.

Whatever wreckage met his snout
   He swallowed promptly down—
Or floating empire, or redoubt,
   Or drifting heathen town.

And yet, it seemed in all that streaming waste
There nothing so much gratified his taste
As foetid oil in subterranean tanks,
And cliffs of coal untouched in nature’s banks,
Or bits of land where cities might be built,
As foraging plats for vileness and guilt;
Or fields of asphalt, soft as fluent salve
Or anything the Indian asked to have.

I once beheld the end of time!
   Its stream had run away;
The years all drifted down in slime,
   In filth dishonored lay.

I must go down,
Down, down,
Below the crusts of things,
Under the shadows,
Into thought-haunted places 
Where few go;
Where the road is broken 
And travelled by monsters,
Truths with hard sphinx-faces.

I must go down 
Into the caves of life,
Into the darknesses,
Deep, deep,
Below the good of things,
Below the evil of things,
Where the calm roots of wisdom creep.

I must tunnel
Under the bloom of dreams,
Under the frame-work of fancies, 
Tunnel alone.
What if I shatter frail things,
Break delicate flowers of myth 
Timorous dreamers have sown?

I must go down
Below narrow roads men have made, 
Below bridging lies men have built, 
Into the caverns of truth.
I know pain is waiting there 
Eager to break me,
But I am strong.
I have faith in my youth.

Living is crusted with lies.
I want life naked,
Laughing and young.
Not fettered, not tamed,
But life unashamed,
With the cry of Desire on her tongue.

Like crawling black monsters
the big clouds tap at my window,
their shooting liquid fingers slide
over the staring panes
and merge on the red wall.
Some of the fingers pull at the hinges
and whisper insistently: “Let us come in,
the cruel wind whips and drives us
till we are sore and in despair.”
But I cannot harbor the big crawling black clouds,
I cannot save them from the angry wind.
In a tiny crevice of my aching heart
there is a big storm brewing
and loud clamour and constant prayer
for the reflection of snow-capped mountains
on a distant lake.
Tires and dazed I sit on a bear skin
and timidly listen to the concert of storms.

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Dust,

Through which
Proud blood
Once flowed.

Dust,

Where a civilization
Flourished.

Dust,
The Valley of the Nile,
Dust,

You proud ones, proud of the skill
With which you play this game––Civilization;
Do not forget that it is a very old game.
Men used to play it on the banks
Of the Tigris and the Euphrates
When the world was a wilderness.

There is a circle around China
Where once a wall stood.
Carthage is a heap of ashes.
And Rome knew the pomp and glory
You know now.

The Coliseum tells a story
The Woolworth Building may repeat.

Dust,
Pharaohs and their armies sleep there.

Dust,
Shall it stir again?

Will Pharaohs rise and rule
And their armies march once more?

Civilization continually shifts
Upon the places of the earth.

                        Part I 

Night       
                  The moonlight: 
                  Juice flowing from an over-ripe pomegranate 
                  bursting 

                   The cossack-crested palm trees: 
                   motionless

                   The leopard spotted shade: 
                   inciting fear

                   silence seeds sown. . . 

                       Part II 

Medicine Dance 

                        A body smiling with black beauty 
                        Leaping into the air 
                        Around a grotesque hyena-faced monster: 
                        The sorcerer—
                        A black body—dancing with beauty 
                        Clothed in African moonlight, 
                        Smiling more beauty into its body. 
                        The hyena-faced monster yelps! 
                        Echo! 
                        Silence—
                        The dance 
                        Leaps—
                        Twirls—
                        The twirling body comes to a fall
                        At the feet of the monster. 
                        Yelps—
                        Wild—
                        Terror-filled—
                        Echo—
                        The hyena-faced monster jumps 
                        starts, 
                        runs, 
                        chases his own yelps back to the wilderness. 
                        The black body clothed in moonlight 
                        Raises up its head, 
                        Holding a face dancing with delight. 

                        Terror reigns like a new crowned king. 

O thou whose care sustained my infant years,
     And taught my prattling lip each note of love;
Whose soothing voice breathed comfort to my fears,
     And round my brow hope’s brightest garland wove;

To thee my lay is due, the simple song,
     Which Nature gave me at life’s opening day;
To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong,
     Whose heart indulgent will not spurn my lay.

O say, amid this wilderness of life,
     What bosom would have throbbed like thine for me?
Who would have smiled responsive?—who in grief,
     Would e’er have felt, and, feeling, grieved like thee?

Who would have guarded, with a falcon-eye,
     Each trembling footstep or each sport of fear?
Who would have marked my bosom bounding high,
     And clasped me to her heart, with love’s bright tear?

Who would have hung around my sleepless couch,
     And fanned, with anxious hand, my burning brow?
Who would have fondly pressed my fevered lip,
     In all the agony of love and wo?

None but a mother—none but one like thee,
     Whose bloom has faded in the midnight watch;
Whose eye, for me, has lost its witchery,
     Whose form has felt disease’s mildew touch.

Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life,
     By the bright lustre of thy youthful bloom—
Yes, thou hast wept so oft o’er every grief,
     That wo hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom.

O then, to thee, this rude and simple song,
     Which breathes of thankfulness and love for thee,
To thee, my mother, shall this lay belong,
     Whose life is spent in toil and care for me.