Death was no empty hat, but a swung trapeze <br />swept through a hall of song. <br />Hung on a silver wire, the winging bar <br />leaped in a singing breeze. <br />Riding with woe, the sweet violins of home <br />grieved in the high wall-lilac <br />and the cadences of a shadowless piper called <br />piteously from old pavements. <br /> <br />I heard, with the sighs of centuries, pagan notes <br />whispering in the cupola, <br />and saw in the flare of thunderhooks, scarecrow skies <br />with wondering savage moons, <br />and a horn with flag-ribbons blown by a coloured bird <br />flying before my eyes.<br /><br />Eric Ratcliffe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-was-no-empty-hat/
