Classic Poem

Down the deep steps of stone through iron doors
I entered that red room and saw the rack,
And round the walls I saw them sit in black,
The immutable and urgent councillors.
My heart was clotted with an old remorse,
Despair a vulture fast upon my back.
I saw my body like an empty sack
Tossed disarticulate on grated floors.

But even a wilder wonder at this crime
Tried in the dungeon of my own grim life
Woke, as your memory awoke with tune
That crazed the very walls. I stared through Time
Like to a man who stands with smoking knife
Above his dead, and sees the rising moon.