THE EMPTY STREET BELOW
To a lone concealed contracted corner,
The empty street below clambers then curves
Quite gradually, it tramples by, now swerves
Before my house, yet for a while, defers.
It did defer from that dim under-shade,
I did intently compute its voyage -
Which was unhurried like a pilgrimage
Yet tempting that I joined in its parade.
It did not bore me stiff, and I did find
Its light, the one that peeped from round the bend,
The one it sought for counsel or to mend
Its faults as most of them are seekers blind,
Or perhaps yet again, for mere relief,
As howling storms - those chill and twisting streams
Did for a laugh that sounded like a scream,
Embraced this frightened region, gave it grief.
The gale's long gone and left this frugal street
Much as it found it – austere and half lit.
The minute plants and stones that line and sit
Have stooped all low; all seemingly to greet
Or hide their indignation. They much look
Like a horde of high-hat men protesting
My vast absurdity. I laugh thinking
that monarchs feel this way as in the books.
And perchance too how their inferiors feel.
Yet I'm inclined until it re-appears –
Those faded footsteps, that each dawn draw near,
Of a peculiar gait nearly surreal,
Of times gone by, yet all the time unfazed
And slow and dawdling like he weren't among
Us faceless faces, and did not belong.
I keenly for his profile bleak did gaze,
For him to trample by, marching to mock
eternity, until this bearded man
In rags, unfeatured by the half-shown sun,
Who bore upon his back an arduous sack
Of kindles, emerged, urging me to hack
And verify my charts in haste, if I
Have indeed, by a wicked witch's eye,
To vanished ages, been transported back.
См. статью: I wrote this in 2011, care to cc?