To Archibald MacLeish <br /> <br />The afternoon with heavy hours <br />Lies vacant on the wanderer's sight <br />And sunset waits whose cloudy towers <br />Expect the legions of the night <br /> <br />Till sullen thunder from the cave <br />Of twilight with deliberate swell <br />Whispers the air his darkening slave <br />To loose the nether bolts of hell <br /> <br />To crush the battlements of cloud <br />The wall of light around the West <br />So that the swarming dark will crowd <br />The traveller upon his quest <br /> <br />And all the air with heavy hours <br />Sinks on the wanderer's dull sight <br />And the thick dark whose hidden towers <br />Menace his travel to the night <br /> <br />Rolls forward, backward hill to hill <br />Until the seeker knows not where <br />Beyond the shade of Peachers' Mill <br />In the burnt meadow, with colourless hair <br /> <br />The secret ones around a stone <br />Their lips withdrawn in meet surprise <br />Lie still, being naught but bone <br />With naught but space within their eyes <br /> <br />Until bewildered by the road <br />And half-forgetful of his quest <br />The wanderer with such a load <br />Of breathing, being too late a guest <br /> <br />Turns back, so near the secret stone, <br />Falls down breathless at last and blind, <br />And a dark shift within the bone <br />Brings him the end he could not find.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-traveller-8/
