Rhymes And Rhythms - XIII

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