There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree <br />With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild <br />Twelve ragged men, the council of charity <br />Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child, <br />Kneel, at their infidelity aghast, <br />For where was it, somewhere in Syria <br />Or Palestine when the streams went red, <br />The victor of Rome, his arms outspread, <br />His eyes cold with his inhuman ecstasy, <br />Cried the last word, the accursed last <br />Of the forsaken that seared the western heart <br />With the fire of the wind, the thick and the fast <br />Whirl of the damned in the heavenly storm: <br />Now the wind's empty and the twelve living dead <br />Look round them for that promontory Form <br />Whose mercy flashed from the sheet lightning's head; <br />But the twelve lie in the sand by the dry rock <br />Seeing nothing-he sand, the tree, rocks <br />Without number-and turn away the face <br />To the mind's briefer and more desert place.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-twelve-3/
