This is no age for slow desires,
Desired on lengths of idle beds
Beside indifferent faces,
For no smile, however fond, can
Settle time like a paper weight.
That time survives and moves beyond
This moment’s diminutive pride
Is itself an incredible
Thing; for fear has warped us all; even
In the freedom of our dreams, it
Thrusts its paws to incarnadine
The virgin whiteness, so that we
Perceive the flying steel hands sow
Over mellow cities those dark,
Malevolent seeds and the red,
Red, mushrooms hotly sprout and grow
On an earth illogically
Stilled, and silenced, and dead, dead, dead.