O my most bitter mood,
O descending hour, plunge in the crater of myself,
And steep decline among flames, faces, torments, darkness!

I had forgotten—
I had forgotten the madness of life—
The blood-drinker, Time, was forgotten, the love-parter, Death,
And those gibbering ghosts, my ancestors.

Horror bore us: as if the gorge of Night rose, becoming worlds:
And on the inhospitable shores of the planet we were born,
And driven before the elements, and whipped, falling, to death …

We rear cities, crowding them with lights:
We try to forget with shows and busy toil:
But under it all the tide, the tide bearing us out.