Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/23

 When he had spoken thus, before he stirred, I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs Of desolation I had seen and heard In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines: Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, Can Life still live? By what doth it proceed?

As whom his one intense thought overpowers, He answered coldly, Take a watch, erase The signs and figures of the circling hours, Detach the hands, remove the dial-face; The works proceed until run down; although Bereft of purpose, void of use, still go.

Then turning to the right paced on again, And traversed squares and travelled streets whose glooms Seemed more and more familiar to my ken; And reached that sullen temple of the tombs; And paused to murmur with the old despair, Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.

I ceased to follow, for the knot of doubt Was severed sharply with a cruel knife: