I

1

In mist Monday
Looms,
A world groping its way on a soundless,
Sightless sea:
Breaking the mist like a ship
Stopped by bells ...

No ripples:
No rain-patter:
No hum of engines:
A dead ship
On the dead sea ...

But on deck voices
Clear, querulous, human.

2

In the becalmed air of these hills
A strayed flicker pipes,
A frog grunts,
Footsteps sound on gravel:
But the mountain-garden
Lies at the bottom of a motionless ocean,
And Earth is an underworld.
The forest has given itself to the arms of whiteness,
And the hills wander like sheep.

3

In mist Monday
Looms,
A giant ship stopped on a soundless,
Sightless sea.

II

In mist the soul
Plaintively whispers ...

" There are tears too many, " it whispers,
" And fears too many;
I am weary of the ever-striving,
I am tired of tears ...
I am weary of the groping and the stumbling
On the grey graves of the years ...

" There is memory of girls like moths in the twilight
On the old city ways,
Memory of the grey twilight of the old days:
Memory of the hands of children clutching, clutching,
Beloved faces, dead, appear ...
Beloved arms are round my drooping head
And her song is in my ear. "

III

In mist the world
Forsakenly sings ...

" Oh, for the old dead days of peace, " it sings,
" The old sweet ways of peace ...
There were cities that ran with the sunrise of wild youth,
Our children were alive,
All over again the Golden Fleece was to win
And honey to gain for the hive ...

" All over again there was love's wild sweetness to win,
And the tale of the home retold,
The golden breakers lured to a launching of ships
In the years of old ...
The aged of Earth could vanish away like the night
Before the sun of the young,
The human song that has risen with every spring
Was now to be resung ...

" But the youth of the world lies dead,
The young blood is spilled,
We shall live for a long winter
Among the graves of the killed ...
We shall live for a long winter
Remembering ways of peace,
Recalling the days of peace;
We shall grow old in the knowledge
We were better dead with these. "

IV

In mist Monday
Looms,
A world groping its way on a soundless,
Sightless sea:
Breaking the mist like a ship
Stopped by bells ...