Under a stagnant sky, <br />Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom, <br />The River, jaded and forlorn, <br />Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on; <br />Yet in and out among the ribs <br />Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles <br />Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls, <br />Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, <br />Lingers to babble to a broken tune <br />(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!) <br />So melancholy a soliloquy <br />It sounds as it might tell <br />The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, <br />The terror of Time and Change and Death, <br />That wastes this floating, transitory world. <br /> <br />What of the incantation <br />That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore <br />To take and wear the night <br />Like a material majesty? <br />That touched the shafts of wavering fire <br />About this miserable welter and wash - <br />(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!) - <br />Into long, shining signals from the panes <br />Of an enchanted pleasure-house, <br />Where life and life might live life lost in life <br />For ever and evermore? <br /> <br />O Death! O Change! O Time! <br />Without you, O, the insuperable eyes <br />Of these poor Might-Have-Beens, <br />These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/under-a-stagnant-sky/
